Big East Tournament prediction: Bet on UConn to cut down the nets in New York

The men’s basketball coaches in the Big East might be outstanding recruiters, tremendous leaders of young men and great at X’s and O’s. But they apparently don’t know much about their own league.

Prior to the start of the 2022-23 season, those coaches picked Creighton to win the regular season crown, Villanova to finish third, Providence fifth and Marquette ninth. Current positions of those four teams in the Big East standings: Marquette first, Providence tied for second, Creighton fourth and Villanova sixth.

Marquette (16-3 league record) has already clinched the outright Big East regular season championship, and is favored to win the Big East tournament for the first time, but oddsmakers give more than half the league a reasonable chance to be the last team standing at Madison Square Garden.

That includes defending tournament champs Villanova.

Here’s a breakdown of Big East Tournament odds, along with our prediction.

Odds updated as of 3 p.m. ET on March 1.

Marquette won the regular season title with room to spare, and oddsmakers rightfully adjusted their power rating numbers on the Golden Eagles. But there was no chance of Marquette entering the Big East Tournament as the prohibitive favorite.

That’s not a knock on coach Shaka Smart’s squad, rather a testament to how competitive the top half of the league has been this season.

Entering Wednesday’s action, six of the Big East’s 11 teams have reached double-digit wins in conference play. Of those half-dozen squads, four have exceeded 20 victories, and all currently sport Top 20 rankings (No. 6 Marquette, No. 14 UConn, No. 19 Xavier and No. 20 Providence).

A fifth team (Creighton) has 18 wins and just missed cracking the Top 25 this week.

On the analytics front, UConn (No. 5), Marquette (No. 13), Creighton (No. 14) and Xavier (No. 18) are inside the KenPom top 20. The same quartet also has similar NCAA NET rankings (No. 8 UConn, No. 13 Marquette, No. 16 Creighton, No. 16 Xavier).

So it’s no surprise that FanDuel has those four programs listed as the top Big East tourney favorites.

That said, the group will head to New York with some company lurking right behind.

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One year after winning the Big East regular season title and making a run to the Sweet 16 of the 2021-22 NCAA Tournament, Providence (21-8, 13-5 in conference) has put together another outstanding season.

That includes one victory over each of the top four teams on FanDuel’s Big East Tournament odds board, plus a season sweep of the team that shares the Friars’ +650 tourney odds: Villanova.

However, after opening conference play with six straight victories — part of a nine-game winning streak — Providence has been spinning its wheels. Heading into Wednesday’s home game against Xavier, the Friars are 7-5 in their last 12.

On the flip side, Villanova has answered an ugly 4-8 start to league play by winning six of its last seven. The lone blemish? An 85-72 loss at Providence.

So even with a mediocre 16-15 record and without retired coach Jay Wright, the Wildcats will be a tough out next week. Besides riding a wave of momentum, they have strong Big East Tournament history on their side, winning five of the last seven events.

What about the other five Big East teams that will be at The Garden? They all have juicy long shot odds beyond 25-to-1 at FanDuel. But outside of maybe Seton Hall (+2600), none have any chance of winning more than one game.

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It’s tough to bet against Marquette. The Golden Eagles have defied expectations all season long, and assuming they take care of business in Saturday’s finale against St. John’s at home, they will enter the conference tourney on a six-game winning streak.

That would be part of a 19-3 run that dates to Dec. 3.

On top of that, five of Marquette’s six losses were by a total of 20 points, including two in overtime.

But that sixth loss is what’s keeping us from grabbing the +300 odds on the Golden Eagles to win the Big East Tournament: On Feb. 7, they went to UConn and got pummeled, 87-72.

Granted, the game was at UConn. However, the Huskies imposed their will that night — especially on the glass, finishing with a 40-19 rebounding edge. Had UConn not committed twice as many turnovers (18) as Marquette (nine), it would’ve won by 30.

That victory is part of the Huskies’ current 6-1 SU/5-2 ATS run — a run that followed a midseason swoon that saw them lose six of eight games after starting the season 14-0.

The way UConn emerged from its slump and righted the ship has been impressive. We also like the team’s depth, its coach, its tournament odds (+350 at FanDuel) and — most importantly — its balance.

To that latter point, the Huskies are No. 12 in offensive efficiency and No. 20 in defensive efficiency. The only other team in the country to rank in the top 20 in both? No. 1-ranked Houston.

UConn likely will have a tough first-round matchup against Creighton, but we expect the Huskies to survive that and go on to win their first Big East Tournament since 2011 — the same year they won their third of four national championships.

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