College Basketball Big East Power Rankings: Week 15
Big East Power Rankings for Week 15 of the college basketball season.
If you thought another week would give us clarity in the middle of the Big East…well, you’ve read the wrong power rankings.
The Big East continues to gravitate toward the middle, with teams in second through ninth place sitting within four games of each other in the loss column. The poles remain fixed, with Villanova heading up the class and DePaul bringing up the rear, but nothing else seems sure. This week – Georgetown continues its bizarre push for the NCAA tournament, Marquette and Butler keep free-falling, and St. John’s time might be now.
Read on and we’ll do our best to sort through another week of up-and-down action throughout the Big East – one of the best three conferences in the country, but also one that might have a claim to just four NCAA bids. It’s been a weird season.
DePaul’s just playing out the string at this point, having lost by double digits in its last four games. Three of them were at “home,” though Allstate Arena is rarely populated enough to call it a home atmosphere. On Monday night, they trailed against Villanova 44-18 in the 2nd half, suffering from turnovers and generally lackadaisical play.
Chris Harrison-Docks has been one of their few bright points in the last few games. The graduate transfer from Western Kentucky saw over 25 minutes in consecutive games for the first time this season and made the most of them. He canned 8 of his 17 attempts from 3-point range in the two games, en route to 15 and 18-point outings. Docks posted individual offense ratings of 130 points/100 and 120 points/100, respectively. Though this brings his season total to just under 100. Remember – this is what qualifies as a bright spot.
Perhaps a harsh fall for Marquette, but everyone around them in the rankings has posted quality wins in the last week. Marquette has lost four of its last five since its upset victory over Villanova, and the sole victory came over DePaul. That’s simply not good.
And it’s not as if this streak has come solely against the best of the conference. They’ve dropped most of the games to other teams in the Big East’s soft middle, including Providence, St. John’s, and Georgetown. Their season-ending slate is significantly harder than the last five games they just plodded through. KenPom pegs them as a favorite in just two of those five, and they’re given just a 55 percent chance of winning at home against Xavier, barely a favorite. All the positives accumulated with one of the country’s best offenses and a victory over the then #1 team will slide away if this team slumps to a NIT berth.