By Sean Brennan, BIG EAST Special
So just how important an event is the BIG EAST Tournament to the 11 schools that will descend on Madison Square Garden this week in hopes of being crowned the 2025 champion?
That’s clearly the main question to be answered over the next four days. But there are always a bevy of questions at this time of year when those 11 teams vie for BIG EAST basketball supremacy.
Can Dan Hurley’s UConn Huskies become the first team to win back--to-back titles since Villanova ran off three straight from 2017-2019?
Is this the year Ryan Kalkbrenner and the Creighton Bluejays finally get to climb the ladder on Saturday night to cut down the championship nets?
Is Rick Pitino´s Red Storm ready to grab its first championship hardware in a quarter of a century and continue its most magical of seasons?
Does Marquette have what it takes behind Kam Jones and Co. to make a third straight run to the title game?
Can a much-improved Georgetown or the very dangerous Villanova or surging Xavier crash the Saturday night party?
Is there a super shocker coming from Butler, Providence, DePaul or Seton Hall?
Lots of questions, but for just how important a tournament championship is to these players? Well, Eric Dixon kind of sums it up nicely. Dixon, the 6-8 heart and soul of the Villanova Wildcats, comes into the tournament leading the nation in scoring with his lofty 23.6 points per game average. And while that distinction is something Dixon is rightfully proud of - “It’s really an honor. There are a lot of very talented guys in the country that can put the ball in the basket at a high level so it is an honor,” he said. Dixon would gladly trade his scoring title for a memorable four-day run at the Garden this week for he and his Wildcats.
“Would I trade the scoring title for a BIG EAST Tournament title?” Dixon said. “One hundred percent. If someone said to me, ‘If you don’t score the rest of the season you’ll win the championship,’ I would not score the rest of the season.”
Yep, that’s how coveted the BIG EAST Tournament crown is. And the 2025 edition tips off Wednesday afternoon when No. 8 Providence takes on ninth-seeded Butler at 4 p.m. ET. The rest of Wednesday’s tripleheader will see No. 7 Georgetown meet No. 10 DePaul at 6:30 p.m. before Dixon and sixth-seeded Villanova battles No. 11 Seton Hall at 9 p.m.
“Somebody is going to surprise somebody in the BIG EAST Tournament,” Georgetown head coach Ed Cooley predicted. ¨Something crazy is going to happen. It happens every year. Some team comes out of nowhere and gets hot at the right time. We're hoping that team is Georgetown.¨
Could be.
Could also be Villanova, which comes in winners of six of its last nine games. Or how about Xavier, which enters the tournament toting the league’s longest winning streak at seven straight?
In fact, Xavier’s Zach Freemantle, who finished top five in the league in both scoring and rebounding this season, thinks the Musketeers are, well, destined to hoist their first BIG EAST Tournament trophy this year.
¨I think we are primed and very capable of making a very deep run this March,” Freemantle said. “A BIG EAST Tournament title is at the very top of the list of things I'm excited about. At the very top. I’ve never made it out of the first round of the BIG EAST Tournament so my goal is to win the BIG EAST Tournament. Between the experience and the overall heart and passion this team has, I feel very confident in our abilities going into this tournament. We’re going to win it.¨
Well there you have it. A very confident Freemantle providing bulletin board material for Xavier opponents, of which Marquette will be the first when No. 4 Xavier squares off with No. 5 Marquette in Thursday’s quarterfinal round at 2:30 p.m.
What about Creighton, you say? Well, newly-minted four-time Defensive Player of the Year Ryan Kalkbrenner, who also has the second-most points in program history and is the winningest player his program has ever seen, said he’d have no problem turning in all his past hardware in exchange for the Bluejays’ first-ever BIG EAST Tournament crown.
For a Bluejays team that has been in the finals two of the past four years, what would it mean for Creighton to finally kick down that door and snag that elusive title?
“It would mean a lot. I’ve been to the championship game twice and haven’t been able to get it done yet so to finally knock that door down would be huge for the program and really show the strides we’ve made as a program in the last few years,¨ Kalkbrenner said. ¨For me personally it would be awesome to go out in my last year with a win like that because I’ve never done it before. So it would really mean a lot.¨
The No. 2 Bluejays will await the winner of the Georgetown-DePaul game and tip off Thursday at 7 p.m.
There´s another program that may not be considered a favorite at first blush. Like Villanova, for instance. Once upon a time the BIG EAST Tournament could have been dubbed the Wildcat Invitational as Villanova won four of the first six championships in the newly formed BIG EAST, including three in a row from 2017-2019. But after not getting past the quarterfinals as a sixth seed the past two seasons, maybe it's time for the Wildcats to jump back into the party.
“We know what we’re capable of and if we just pull together we can definitely do what we want to do when we get there,” Dixon said.
Villanova is again a six seed this year, and if they get past Seton Hall Wednesday night, the Wildcats would have a Thursday night date with No. 3 UConn in the quarterfinals. A fairly tall order, no?
“I never go into a game planning to lose,” Dixon said. “I always feel we have a chance to win when we lace them up, especially with the talent that we have.”
We're a good way into this story and we haven't even mentioned UConn, the defending champion, Marquette, which is a perennial title threat, or St. John’s, which is the talk of the league this year.
UConn has looked like its old dominant self ever since freshman phenom Liam McNeeley came back from his eight-game absence due to an ankle injury. So, with McNeeley healthy again, along with Solo Ball, an elite scorer in the conference, and Alex Karaban, who already owns two NCAA championship rings, lets see a show of hands: Who wants to pick against the Huskies?
Which brings us to Marquette. With two top 20 scorers in Kam Jones and David Joplin, and one of the best defensive players on the circuit in Stevie Mitchell, would you really feel comfortable saying the Golden Eagles are not headed for a third straight title game showdown?
How about St. John’s? OK, so who had any of the following on their BIG EAST Bingo Card: St. John´s emerging as a national power as the Red Storm breached the AP Top 10 for the first time since 2000, posting a 7-0 January, running off a 10-game conference winning streak and posting back-to-back wins over Top 20 teams in the same week for the first time since 2006?
Yeah, neither did I. But Rick Pitino’s squad has grabbed the back pages of the New York newspapers and become a hot topic on sports radio in New York for the first time since gas was a buck a gallon. Or so it seems.
“Ï´? just glad to be part of this season. It's really been special,¨ said the Red Storm´s RJ Luis Jr.
The Johnnies lost a heartbreaker to UConn in last year´s BIG EAST Tournament and the Storm ended up with an NCAA-less postseason. Luis Jr. said that is what is driving the Johnnies this season and expectations are high for the Red Storm this time around.
¨It was one of those feelings you don't want to feel again,¨ Luis Jr. said. ¨It definitely (stunk). There is always that motivation to play in the NCAA Tournament. I haven't won anything in my college career. So, I came here to play with Coach Pitino and win big, learn from him and make something special happen this year. I think we got the right pieces to get the job done.¨
The top-seeded Red Storm will face the winner of Butler-Providence in Thursday’s quarterfinals at noon.
Anyway, lots of questions abound as we get set to tip off the 2025 BIG EAST Tournament at the World´s Most Famous Arena.
¨Theres nothing like the BIG EAST Tournament,¨ said Luis Jr., as St. John´s prepares to battle for its first title in 25 seasons. ¨It would mean everything if we could win. This team would be stamped in history. I can´t wait. I´m super excited. I think if we could accomplish winning it, the sky's the limit for us.¨
Lots of questions. But all the answers will be revealed over the next four days at Madison Square Garden.