Race to first place: UConn men’s chances at Big East’s No. 1 seed are in Seton Hall’s hands

UConn’s chances at the No. 1 seed in the Big East tournament are in Seton Hall’s hands.

If the Pirates beat St. John’s in Newark, N.J., on Friday, the Huskies would clinch the top seed in the tournament and a share of the league’s regular-season title regardless of the result in their season finale on Saturday at Marquette.

If St. John’s wins, it would clinch the top seed for the second year in a row and at least a share of the regular-season crown. UConn would have to beat Marquette to tie the Johnnies at 18-2 and share the regular-season title, but St. John’s would still hold the tiebreaker advantage for the No. 1 seed.

In that case, both teams would tie the Big East record for wins with 18 – which was set by UConn in 2024 and matched by St. John’s last season. It would be UConn’s 11th Big East regular season title and second under coach Dan Hurley.

The Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden begins with three first-round games on Wednesday. The top seed plays in the noon quarterfinal Thursday against the winner of the 8-9 first-round game. The No. 2 seed plays the winner of the 7-10 game at 7 p.m. The championship is Saturday at 6:30 p.m.

“You give St. John’s a lot of credit, you give us a lot of credit. I think we’ve pushed each other this year hard,” Hurley said after Thursday’s practice. “To think that 17-3 is not going to be enough to win your league… That’s two programs pushing each other pretty hard. To think it’s going to take 18-2 in conference play to maybe get a share… They play Friday, we play Saturday, but our mindset is that we know we have to win on Saturday to win a championship.”

Since UConn and St. John’s split their head-to-head series, the league’s tiebreaker comes down to results against the league’s highest-ranked opponents, down the line until there is a point of difference.

Both teams swept Villanova, which secured a third-place finish. Seton Hall will finish fourth. If both teams sweep the Pirates, UConn’s loss to Creighton will decide the tiebreaker.

“Since we lost the Creighton game, we’ve been in basically playoff mode because any game we lost, we knew we probably wouldn’t win the regular season,” Hurley said. “So we’ve been in playoff mode. Should have been in playoff mode going into the Creighton game, but we have since.”

Source Link