5 things to watch ...
The Big East Tournament returns to Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville for the fourth straight season this week, and the field is wide open behind the top-seeded Uconn women’s basketball team.
Uconn won’t play until Saturday thanks to a bye, but the first round of the Big East tournament tips off Friday at 11 a.m. with 8-seed Butler facing 9-seed Providence. From the best underdog stories to squads with real upset potential, here are the biggest storylines to watch through Monday’s championship game.
Uconn women favored for fourth straight title
This season hasn’t felt easy for Uconn with five season-ending injuries on the roster and five nonconference losses to top-20 opponents. But for Big East opponents on the outside looking in, the Huskies have been nothing less than the buzz saw that the conference has come to expect over the last three decades. They completed the program’s 11th undefeated Big East season — a feat only three other teams have accomplished in conference history — in decisive fashion with 17 of 18 wins by at least 20 points.
Uconn will look to win its fourth consecutive title since rejoining the Big East in 2020-21, though the team also won seven straight American Athletic Conference championships from 2014-2020. The Huskies’ last loss in a conference tournament was to Notre Dame in the 2013 championship.
How far can Georgetown, Darnell Haney go?
It’s remarkable what Georgetown has accomplished this season while mourning the death of first-year head coach Tasha Butts on Oct. 23 after a two-year battle with breast cancer. Interim head coach Darnell Haney took over just two weeks before the Hoyas played their season opener against Maryland Eastern Shore, and he has led Georgetown to just its second 18-win season since 2012. The Hoyas enter the Big East tournament as the No. 6 seed, their first time finishing better than ninth in the conference since 2019, and open against 11-seed Xavier at 4 p.m. on Friday.
The Hoyas are led by Big East Co-defensive Player of the Year Kelsey Ransom, who leads a unit that ranks first in the Big East and No. 13 nationally in scoring defense holding opponents to 54.9 points per game. Georgetown has been more competitive than their record suggests, too. Three of their Big East losses were by less than five points, including a two-point heartbreaker at Villanova in overtime on Jan. 10. The Hoyas thrive in low-scoring defensive slugfests, and those are the kinds of games ripe for upsets in the grueling tournament format.
Lucy Olsen looks to continue standard at Villanova
Maddy Siegrist left big shoes to fill at Villanova when she declared for the WNBA Draft after the 2022-23 season. The 2023 Big East Player of the Year led the Wildcats to back-toback appearances in the conference championship game and became the first player in program history to earn first-team All-american honors. Junior guard Lucy Olsen doesn’t have Siegrist’s level of star power, but she’s stepped up in an impressive way to help replace that production. Olsen was named the Big East’s Most Improved Player, leading the conference in scoring with 23 points per game plus 3.9 assists and 1.9 steals.
The Wildcats hadn’t been to a Big East championship game before Siegrist since 2003 when they upset Uconn to win the title. Villanova will likely run into the Huskies in the semifinals if it wins its quarterfinal against 5-seed Marquette on Saturday, but avoiding an upset in that first game will secure some confidence that the Wildcats are still heading in a positive direction.
Creighton chasing return to Big East championship game
The last time Creighton was a 2-seed in the Big East tournament in 2017, the Bluejays were upset in the semifinals by 3-seed Marquette and began a seven-year streak of eliminations before the championship. Creighton’s last appearance in the final round of the tournament was as a 7-seed in 2016, and it lost to St. John’s to finish runner-up. This year the Bluejays are a 2-seed once again, earning a first-round bye to face the winner of 7-seed Seton Hall vs. 10-seed Depaul in the quarterfinals on Saturday at time at 7 p.m.
Uconn beat Creighton by a combined 64 points across two regular-season meetings, so it would take a lot for the Bluejays to dethrone the Huskies if chalk holds to the championship game. But Creighton has its clearest path to the end of the bracket in years with at least one win over every team in the conference this season except for Uconn. Its lone loss outside of the Huskies was 76-70 at Marquette on Dec. 13, and the Bluejays redeemed themselves with a 76-71 win at home on Jan. 31.
Marquette aims to pull another 5-seed upset
Marquette finished fifth in the Big East for the third consecutive season, but the previous two indicate that the 5-seed could be a good thing for the Golden Eagles. Marquette has pulled off an upset of the 4-seed in the first matchup both years to reach the semifinals, though the team has also twice run into eventual champion Uconn in that following round.
Villanova is a daunting 4-seed opponent, especially because the Wildcats went 2-0 in their regular-season meetings. When they first faced off Jan. 17, Olsen scored 37 of Villanova’s 66 points in a three-point win, but the Golden Eagles held her to 19 points when they hosted the Wildcats on Feb. 10. Co-defensive Player of the Year Christina Dalce made the difference in that low-scoring battle with 10 rebounds and five blocks, and Villanova escaped Milwaukee with another three-point win. A Marquette upset would require a big showing from All-big East center Liza Karlen, who leads the team averaging 18 points per game in 2023-24.and put up 16 in last year’s semifinal upset of St. John’s.