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Posted at 12:15 PM EST

Big East Tournament - Madison Square Garden - New York

9:00 PM EST. Marquette is in for sure and we have to question its motivation level here, as the Golden Eagles get ready for Selection Sunday to see where they’ll be seeded and which team they’ll face in the opening round. We’ve said it before and will say it again that the Golden Eagles are a one-man show that caught lightning in a bottle for a long stretch. However, they limped to the finish line with four losses in their final five games with only victory over that span coming against the Johnnies. The blueprint to beating Marquette is not a difficult one (make someone else besides Markus Howard beat you) and it appears that the Big East has caught on. There is no switch to turn on and we’re not even sure that Marquette even cares to. Myles Powell exploded for 29 points in the first half yesterday and Seton Hall breezed past Georgetown 73-57. The Pirates will/should be in the tournament; the only questions are their seed and degree of second-weekend potential. The seed is creeping up into single-digit territory and that trend would accelerate with a win over Marquette in the Big East semifinals. As for the Hall's potential, this team can most certainly give some No. 1 or 2 seed a game in the round of 32 if Powell keeps playing like this. It’s an all-upside scenario for Seton Hall, whose wins over Kentucky and Maryland remain among the strongest of any bubble team. Throw in the 6-7 Q1 record and a 7-3 mark against Q2, and it reveals how dangerous the Pirates are.

Seton Hall is off the bubble according to bracketologists but we’ve seen that play out wrong many times before and the Pirates are not going to take anything for granted. Finally, this will be a hugely partisan crowd in the Pirates favor and that, too, adds to their great appeal as a dog. We like the Pirates outright but man, those four points sure provide a nice little safety net.e Selection Sunday — is already a serious accomplishment. It’s already done so much, yet there’s still much more to do. Beating St. John’s twice isn’t impressive and nor is Xavier’s entire body or work. As a well-know mid-major, we trust they’re getting too much credit in this price.

The Bubble Watcher’s initial instinct upon seeing the Big East tournament bracket might be to lament Creighton’s fate: The Bluejays, very much in need of wins, will face one of the hottest teams in the country in here and some may suggest it’s a brutal draw but frankly, it’s the Musketeers that got the brutal draw. In some ways, Xavier’s scalding finish has obscured the fact that the Bluejays themselves ended the season with five consecutive wins, including March 3’s massive road win over Marquette, a streak that rescued a banished, woebegone résumé out of the bubble wilderness once and for all. Meanwhile, while nothing is guaranteed for either team — and Creighton may also need more than one win to feel safe about its bid — one would rather arrive at Madison Square Garden with Creighton’s résumé than Xavier’s. Creighton played the 29th ranked non-con schedule in the country (Xavier’s non-con SOS was 142), they’re the superior team and they’ll leave absolutely nothing on the table here in this winnable game. Creighton has been tough all season while the Musketeers have not.

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