Big East Tournament Pairings

Syracuse and Marquette, in addition to beating the Hoyas three times combined, crapped the bed on Saturday, losing to Louisville and Notre Dame, respectively, leaving the Hoyas hanging at the number 8 seed in the conference.  The good news is that still means that Georgetown doesn’t have to play until Wednesday, when the Hoyas will face the winner of DePaul-South Florida (eek!).  The bad news is that, if the Hoyas win round one, they’ve got a quarterfinal match-up with Syracuse, their nemesis and, in two match-ups this year, superior.

Here are the Tuesday through Saturday games, with seeding before each team (check out note below for my understanding of the #2-4 tie-break):

Tuesday:

• Game 1: #16 DePaul v. #9 South Florida, 12 pm, ESPN2
• Game 2: #13 St. John’s v. # 12 Connecticut, 2 pm, ESPN2
• Game 3: #15 Providence v. #10 Seton Hall, 7 pm, ESPNU
  
• Game 4: #14 Rutgers v. #11 Cincinnati, 7 PM, ESPNU
  

Wednesday

• Game 5: Game 1 winner v. #8 Georgetown, 12 pm, ESPN
• Game 6: Game 2 winner v. #5 Marquette, 2 pm, ESPN
  
• Game 7: Game 3 winner v. #7 Notre Dame, 7 pm, ESPN
• Game 8: Game 4 winner v. #6 Louisville, 9 pm, ESPN

Thursday

• Game 9: Game 5 winner v. #1 Syracuse, 12 pm, ESPN
• Game 10: Game 6 winner v. #4 Villanova, 2pm, ESPN
• Game 11: Game 7 winner v. #2 Pittsburgh, 7 pm, ESPN
• Game 12: Game 8 winner v. #3 West Virginia, 9 pm, ESPN

Friday

• Game 13: Game 9 winner v.  Game 10 winner, 7 pm, ESPN
• Game 14: Game 11 winner v. Game 12 winner, 9 pm ESPN

Saturday

• Game 15: Game 13 winner v. Game 14 winner, 9 pm, ESPN

A note on tie-breakers.  Pittsburgh, Villanova, and West Virginia tied in conference record.  To break that tie, the Big East’s rules consider the three teams a “mini-conference” and rank the teams according to their record in that mini-conference.  Pittsburgh beat Villanova in their lone match-up; Villanova split its games against West Virginia; and West Virginia and Pittsburgh likewise split their contests.  That makes Pittsburgh 2-1, West Virginia 2-2, and Villanova 1-2 in the mini-conference, and the tie is broken in that order.