UConn Will Take Down Villanova In Big East Tournament

Villanova vs. UConn, 9:30 ET

The Big East hasn't gotten quite as much love this year as it has the past couple, but that is a little surprising to me. St. John's has been terrific, and arguably one of the best teams in the country. As I write this, Cooper Flagg is potentially out for the season with an ankle injury leaving St. John's and Auburn as my two favorites to win the National Championship. I like Florida too, for whatever that is worth to you. However, this year still hasn't seen much Big East love as UConn underperformed and teams like Villanova were just okay. 

Villanova is one of those teams that seems to be in the tournament every year, but they are almost never considered the best team in the nation. This season the team went 19-13, playing good enough to be competitive in most games, but never really posing a threat to be a ranked team. They were just average in conference play as they went to an 11-9 record, landing them in sixth. They opened the conference tournament with a 12-point win over Seton Hall. This was the third time this year they were able to take down Seton Hall. Their losses this season in Big East play were against Creighton, St. John's, Xavier, Georgetown, Marquette, Creighton again, Providence, UConn, and Georgetown again. The Georgetown losses concern me a bit, but outside of those, there was just one home loss and it was to Creighton. Everything else was on the road. They also lost two out of three neutral court games this year and had another road loss earlier in the year. Point is, they just aren't that good overall, but they are worse away from home.

For UConn this was supposed to be the 3-peat season. What it has become is a total joke. Okay, so maybe I'm being too harsh. They were decent this year, with a 22-9 record. But, this is the problem with the Huskies - they get more publicity this season for their coach's antics and press conferences than they do on the floor. Dan Hurley, considered the best coach in college basketball by some, is seemingly doing everything he can to show that he is the focal point of the team, not his players. I guess if they win a third year in a row, it is justified and doesn't matter. So what went wrong on the court? They dropped three straight games in a Thanksgiving tournament. The first two were close, but the antics of Hurley kind of overshadowed the actual game. Then the third game Dayton embarrassed them. It kind of seemed like they intentionally threw in the towel. They lost on the road to Villanova, then to Creighton at home, and then dropped a road game to Xavier, lost at home to St. John's, and then lost two more road games to Seton Hall and St. John's. Most of the Big East games were close, with only their road loss to St. John's by more than 10 points. 

These two teams are now playing their third game against each other. In the first one, UConn lost by two points on the road. In the second, UConn held Villanova to just 59 points while hosting them. If you want a reason to be encouraged that UConn will take this down and cover the spread, I think it is that in their victory, they shot just 21% from three and won the rebounding and assists battle. I think UConn will win at least this game. I can't say they will win them all moving forward, but at least this one they should win by double-digits. I just hope Hurley gets out of the way.