Shhh…Don’t talk about it.
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| Just ignore it…maybe it will go away. |
It’s mid-February and College Basketball is in its’ stretch run – onward for league championships and post season tournaments. It’s the annual buildup to the NCAA Championship crescendo!
Top 25 teams are being swatted like flies on a daily basis. A season in flux is what we have here. The media pundits are squeaking about a “soft or weak” bubble for the NCAA’s. What that tells me is that unexpected teams will be dancing…rather than the normal Jenga Tower of P5 participants.
There is one curious little occurrence… over in the Big East Conference. The preseason pick for cellar dweller (9th place pick), little Creighton seems to be on a late season run and is currently sitting in 3rd in the conference with 5 games to go.
| BIG EAST | |||
| TEAM | CONF. W-L | TOT. W-L | RPI RANK |
| Villanova | 12-1 | 22-3 | 3 |
| Xavier | 10-3 | 22-3 | 7 |
| Creighton | 8-5 | 17-9 | 81 |
| Seton Hall | 7-5 | 17-7 | 49 |
| Providence | 7-6 | 19-7 | 39 |
| Georgetown | 7-6 | 14-12 | 79 |
| Butler | 6-7 | 17-8 | 64 |
| Marquette | 5-8 | 16-10 | 116 |
| DePaul | 2-10 | 8-16 | 150 |
| St. Johns | 0-13 | 7-19 | 204 |
Courtesy CBS Sports…
Their fans are holding their breath – “waiting to exhale“, along with the Jays being outright ignored by the vast majority of media talking heads. Only Rothstein @JonRothstein has surprisingly taken note and has made a few direct comments. ESPN’s Eamonn Brennan has given mention (3 in 10 days) in sidebar shoutouts via the Bubble Watch. Seems that most are hoping little Creighton folds and goes away, rather than celebrate a remarkable turn around.
Of course that is because most of the professional lemmings agreed the Jays would continue to slosh about in the pits of the BE standings. Its’s tough for the “experts” to admit they were wrong. Looks as though most of the Jays fandom have those same thoughts. On the Holyland of Hoops (Big East) board – no one except the troll Stever20 is talking Creighton, and as par for the course his schtick is all negative. The good folks on Big East Coast Bias and Today’s U are also ignoring a great story for this season.
Now, much can and possibly will occur over these last 2-3 weeks of conference play – both ranked teams and the preseason top 4-5 teams will win and lose. One or more of the bottom tier will play spoiler, etc.
Creighton has already beaten 4 of the remaining 5 opponents. The Jays are playing well, especially defensively (Surprise), and well enough offensively to win. It appears that Creighton players are coming out of earlier shooting slumps and I for one, am very optimistic about the Jays continuing this February winning run. It is mathematically impossible for the team to meet or exceed my preseason picks, but it is well within the realm of both possibility and probability they can exceed 20 w’s in the regular season and pick up a couple of w’s in the BET. There is a great opportunity for Creighton to make the Dance. The best part is that the team sees the opportunity ahead of them and are geared up to make it.
I suggested to Rothstein @JonRothstein to run with Creighton and gain loyal readers and twitter followers…we shall see if he takes the suggestion or not.
Recently tweeted the team and coaches irt the NCAA Tourney – encouraging them to make it to St. Louis for the NCAAs and the new Creighton Invitational at the Scottrade Center. I am praying like mad. Offered to buy the staff’s 1st round at their favorite watering hole in St. Louis. It’ll be like old times with 8-10K Creightonians “in our house” at the Scottrade. Heck, if it gets good, I might buy 2 rounds.
In other related news:
Creighton’s Maurice Watson named Big East Player of the Week (POW), as well as both CBS’ & NBC’s National POW.
Parting Shot: Can’t count on Providence remaining a top 50 rpi team or ranked, by the time we visit the Dunk on 02 March. Jays need to run the table and beat X at the Cintas on 05 March.
Will post a Short Riff general update in a couple of days.
gtmoBlue
Bluenotes 