The Big East is off to one of its best starts in years, and two of the league’s best teams are set to square off as Seton Hall will look to take down Butler at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse.
When college basketball fans start listing off the best conferences in America, the Big East doesn’t get mentioned much anymore. The Big East was a beast back in its glory days when teams like Syracuse, Georgetown, and St. John’s were jockeying for national supremacy, but the last few rounds of conference realignment left the league a shadow of its former self.
There has been a renaissance in Big East basketball this season, however, with pretty much every one of the conference’s ten teams having a shot at a trip to the NCAA Tournament. Two of the Big East’s best teams meet up tonight with Seton Hall hitting the road to take on Butler.
The Pirates were a team that flirted with the top 10 in preseason polls, and outside of a rough patch where Myles Powell was banged up, they have pretty much lived up to the hype. Powell is a game-wrecking scorer, averaging a team-high 21.5 points per game, including 23 in a victory over Marquette last Saturday.
While most experts were very high on Seton Hall entering the season, the same can’t be said for Butler. In the conference’s pre-season polls, the Bulldogs were picked to finish just eighth, but they have gone on to demonstrate that those polls are worth about as much as the paper they are written on.
Butler has raced out to a 15-1 start this season, with their lone defeat coming by a point at Baylor, which just went to Kansas and dominated the Jayhawks at Allen Fieldhouse. Wins over Purdue and Florida are nice for Butler, but they haven’t faced a truly elite team yet besides the Bears.
This matchup should be a very good test for both teams, who are the last two unbeaten squads in Big East play. The winner of this game should put themselves into the driver’s seat for the conference’s regular-season title, making this meeting at Hinkle Fieldhouse a massive one for the league.
How to watch Seton Hall at Butler
- Date: Wednesday, Jan. 15
- Time: 6:30 p.m. ET
- Location: Indianapolis, IN
- Venue: Hinkle Fieldhouse
- TV: Fox Sports 1
- Live Stream: Fox Sports Go
- Odds: The Action Network
- Pick: Seton Hall
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