Daily Campus writers and college basketball junkies Sam Calhoun and Jake McCreven talk about the Big East men’s basketball season as they prepare you for the upcoming Big East Tournament in March.
Episode Transcript:
Hello everybody. Welcome to the Road to Manhattan.
I’m Sam Calhoun. When it comes to Big East basketball, I cover the UConn men’s basketball team, and I’m here with Jake McCreven.
The Big East Tournament is coming up, like, relatively soon. Like, it’s coming up like, really soon. Yep. We have a week from Saturday, the final day of the Big East regular season, I believe. And I’ll just start off with our first topic.
So last year, the Big East had three teams make the NCAA Tournament: UConn, who won the national championship, Marquette and Creighton. St John’s and Seton Hall and Providence were on the bubble, and they were unfortunately on the wrong side of the bubble.
But this year, just considering how last year was, with just three teams making the NCAA Tournament out of what is a premier basketball conference in college basketball. You and I went to Big East Media Day back in October. What was your expectation for the Big East going into the season?
Well, I just want to start off and explain my role in the Big East. I cover the UConn women’s basketball team for The Daily Campus, and we’re talking about men’s basketball. About men’s basketball. Sorry to interrupt. Yes, this will be a men’s Big East basketball chat cast. So I just want to put that out there. What I do is I report for the women’s basketball team, and then I write my personal column every week on men’s basketball from a national perspective. So, so he’s like a national writer. I’m more of a Big East writer, yes. So I actually have a column called Big East Baller Update, succeeding, the great, great, and also UConn alum Cole Stefan. Shoutout Cole. And, yeah, sorry, you can finish what you were about to say.
Well, my expectations for the Big East in October, I remember walking around with Sarg, Connor Sargeant, for everyone who doesn’t know, and talking to all these different players. I mean, I talked to Malik Mack, I talked to Bryce Hopkins from from Providence, and Eric Dixon and Kadary Richmond, because the men’s media availability was before the women’s. I remember thinking to myself, “There are so many good teams in the Big East,” and I think there still are.
You know, last year, you only had three of them make the NCAA tournament. Connecticut, one seed, Marquette, I believe was a two seed.
To go off what you said, my expectations were high from everything from, I mean, last night, we actually just had someone clinch at least a share of the regular season. St John’s clinched the share of the regular season for the first time since the 1991–92 season. So hold on. Let me just applaud them for that. Rick Pitino, what a job he has done with that program. He’s done it every stop college-wise. He’s done at Providence, he’s done it at Kentucky, he’s done at Louisville, Iona, and now he’s done it at St John’s and I was high on them when they got that really nasty backcourt. Kadary, Richmond, you mentioned, from Seton Hall, and then Deivon Smith from Utah. We can talk about two of their players, being Big East Player of the Year, contenders, not just Richmond, but RJ Luis Jr., who I didn’t really know about before the season, and he’s turned out to be an incredible player this year, and I love his game now, watching him in person twice and on my TV a handful of times, RJ Luis stood out to me because he isn’t a great shooter. I think he three point percentage of this year is 29.2%, which is in the 31st percentile nationally. So that’s not good, not in the Big East, nationally, but he’s averaging 17 and a half points per game, shooting nearly 50% from the field, and is a front-runner for Big East Player of the Year, alongside some of the greats in the conference, like Kam Jones and Ryan Kalkbrenner.
I really thought Xavier was gonna have a great year. I thought they were gonna be ranked late, like most of the year. They’re not ranked right now. They’re still, I believe Xavier’s just a half-game back in the standings of UConn, who swept the Big East championships last season. Yes, so Xavier is 18–10 overall, and 10–7 of the Big East. I mean, UConn is 11–6. So it’s one game back, and they played each other twice already, and it’s really just a win-out kind of scenario because if UConn wins out, they get the three seed and they play at the 9pm game on that quarterfinal Thursday. Yeah, I mean, they got, I mean, with Zach Freemantle back, and he’s been, he’s been really good for them. He’s really recovered well, he hasn’t been the guy that they were with when they had Souley Boum and Adam Kunkel and Colby Jones and Jack Nunge, that team was gross. I thought that team, by the way, a couple years back, was going to make the Final Four, and I already said that after they beat UConn at Gampel two years ago, that was my freshman year, and they ended up getting a horrendous draw in the tournament that was I felt so bad for him, because that team is really good. And shoutout Sean Miller, he’s an incredible coach, but, yeah. But then their backcourt, Dayvion McKnight, they lose Desmond Claude, which was tough. That was really tough. He transferred to USC to go play for Eric Musselman, who just went there from Arkansas. But, um, but, but, yeah, it’s just, it’s been a wild ride.
It’s been a very roller coaster season in the Big East. Wouldn’t you agree? I would, and I would say that at this point in the year, it’s coming up on the last day of February, that is tomorrow, February 28, and a little over a week in the regular season remaining. Yeah, I think there’s a clear tier of contenders in the Big East.
Who did you think was going to break out and be like the best player in the Big East coming into the year, and has that changed? I was a big fan of two of Creighton’s guards, excuse me, Marquette guards, and that is Stevie Mitchell and Chase Ross. Not even Kam Jones? You know, I think everyone kind of expected Kam Jones, if you were to ask me, who did I expect to break out that people weren’t necessarily talking about, Stevie Mitchell and Chase Ross. I think Ross hasn’t really stepped up as much as Mitchell. How many years did he have? Ross, yeah, sophomore. I believe he is. So I think he still has, he should come back next year. What do you like about Chase Ross? What do I like by Chase Ross? He’s just kind of a dynamic guard where you can kind of give you a nice shot on any spot on the floor, and he fits into that shock of smart defense where, yeah, he can switch into that zone and man coverage, and he’s just kind of like a do it all type of guard, and that’s exactly what Marquette needed, whereas Stevie Mitchell was just this bulldog on the defensive end. I don’t know if he still leads the Big East and steals. I would not be surprised if he does, but last year, I remember watching him just like, wow. Like, this guy is incredible. And obviously, Marquette’s defense isn’t crazy good. They have a 96.1 defensive rating according to Ken palm, which is 22nd nationally. So that’s pretty good. But when you compare it to the likes of you know, St John’s, some of these big 12 teams, St John’s has an 88.2 defensive rating. For those of you don’t know you want to have a lower defensive rating, Oh, yeah. Like, it’s like, if you’re a golf guy, it’s like, golf. You want the low score, like, like, if you could get into it, you could get into, like, the 40, somehow, that’s never gonna happen. But you won’t get as low to as close to zero as possible in your defensive rating, because that just shows if you, if you have one of the lowest ones, you’re considered an elite defensive team. And that’s what St John’s has been, I think, and that was a reason, I mean, and he’s still, I think, in contention, even though I do think Ryan Kalkbrenner is gonna get it, I still think Mitchell’s in contention for Big East Defensive Player of the Year.
I think Kalkbrenner is going to win Player of the Year, even though that’s still a race. Freshman of the Year, since Thomas Sorber of Georgetown just got hurt a little bit ago. Just the other day, they ruled him out for the year. He just got surgery yesterday, as a matter of fact. Liam McNeeley of UConn became, I mean, he was a preseason favorite, and now I think he’s the odds-on favorite to win the award, just because he’s gonna finish out the season. They’re both have missed time. But, man, that’s such a big loss for Georgetown. And you could tell last night when, uh, when watching UConn host Georgetown because they were so razor thin. Drew Fielder was pretty solid up until he had his fifth foul. He fouled a lot in that game. But outside Fielder, they’re really razor thin and Fielder’s not like a carbon copy of Thomas Sorber, but he’s still, I think he still can produce when needed, but, yeah, it’s tough last for Georgetown with him.
And then Coach of the Year you want to say on three? 1, 2, 3, Rick Pitino. What a job he’s done, and I have so much respect for him. I mean, I’ve obviously, I’m a lot older than you. You’re a freshman, I’m a junior, and I’ve gotten to see Pitino at during his Louisville days, when he would coach Peyton Siva and Russ Smith and Montrezl Harrell and Donovan Mitchell and the latter two not even playing the Big East, but in the ACC. He just does it so consistently. This guy’s 72 years old and still kicking it like he was back in his Boston University days. He really is the Godfather, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him, and he’s easily the coach of the year.
What team this season has surprised you positively? I’ll give you one for both directions, I’ll say surprise positive and surprise negative. I think the unanimous decision for surprise positive would be the Georgetown Hoyas, yeah, oh my god. I think they did so so well in the off-season, just in the portal, then, I mean, Thomas Sorber comes in and just absolutely wreaks havoc and looks like not just one the best freshmen in the Big East, but one of the best freshman in the country. Then Micah Peavy, who’s been unreal. Ed Cooley, who’s the head coach at Georgetown, talked about Peavy, calling him to be the National Player of the Week last week. He was very upset and was very vocal about in his post-game press conference at the XL Center in Hartford. So yeah, they have something really good going. And they got Malik Mack, who you talked about, the Harvard transfer. Sarg was a big fan of him, too. I remember him, him being a big fan of him.
But now, let’s go the other direction. Who’s the team that you were very surprised negatively about? You know, I think you can make an argument for Xavier, but there’s still a borderline tournament team, which is, I think, I think they’re gonna make the crown, yeah. I think that that’s what kind of people put as their ceiling. So I think they met expectations. I think Providence just really yeah, this year, I thought, I thought they were gonna be really good too. I thought that Bryce Hopkins would come back from the ACL injury and kind of lead the team. Their bank court didn’t fill in the role that Devin Carter left behind and that and that really hurt them.
I think I can kind of use that as a segue to get into the tier list, and the tiers of teams that will not win the Big East tournament in Manhattan, and that is DePaul, who has really struggled on the offensive end in the Big East. This has been the best DePaul season since probably 2007 it’s been quite a while for them, though. I get, I give Chris Holtmann a lot of credit. That’s a really difficult situation there, just because they’ve been bad for so long, they haven’t made the NCAA tournament since 2004 and literally the last NCAA Tournament game was when they were part of, number one, the Conference USA, and number two, they lost to UConn, who won the national championship that year.
But I do have faith in Chris Holtmann. I do think he can turn that around. Chicago is a great place to copy, and I mean, it’s not super impossible. It’s just very difficult to win there. And I give a lot, I give him a lot of credit. I mean, you could tell when Liam went down on New Year’s Day that they took advantage of that, and they actually are a decent shooting team. They’re one of the better three-point shooting teams in in the Big East. Are they? Do they heavily rely on that? Maybe. But does that hurt them? Sure, but I think they’re trying in the right direction. DePaul is not going to win the Big East.
Providence, I don’t think, well you can throw Seton Hall in there. So Seton Hall’s in there, and you throw Georgetown in there. Seton Hall, yeah, Georgetown, especially without Sorber. With Sorber, different story.
But when it came to Seton Hall, I feel so bad for Shaheen Holloway, the head coach there, just because of the fact that I mean, man, the transfer portal’s screwed up his entire roster, His starting backcourt gone. The only real key player from that team to return was Al-Amir Dawes, I believe. And actually one of the all-freshmen guys Isaiah Coleman, who had a good game against UConn and actually upset the Huskies in Newark, where UConn has not won in quite some time. It’s been like their kryptonite. But yeah, that, I feel so bad. They’re gonna be back, though. I have faith in Shaheen hallway. I thought that he was a contender for Big East Coach of the Year, but just the overwhelming success that UConn had, it had to go to Dan Hurley and even, and even with Kim English, I think he had a chance last year so,
but Seton Hall will be back.
So that leaves us with St John’s, Marquette, Creighton, UConn, Xavier, and I believe Villanova, yes. And the thing is, Villanova hasn’t had a great year. Their head coach, Kyle Neptune, is very much on the hot seat. And no matter what the season turns into, could still end up in him being fired, unless you go to the Final Four or something and make this incredible run, which I don’t think that will happen, just in terms of their the balance of their team. They still have the nation’s leading scorer in Eric Dixon, and there’s a good segue to talk about our all-Big East first team as well, and do you think he deserves to have a spot in there? I think so, just because of the fact he’s a nation’s leading scorer. And when you have a premier four, there’s no one that you can really replace Dixon with in terms of Big East play this year. Yeah, so I put, I’m putting Villanova in that contender tier, not because they’re a great team overall. They have some pieces, but you put them there because they have the nation’s leading scorer. And I think he has solidified himself as an all-Big East first teamer. I think you can make the argument that he is a first-team all-American. Dixon? Yes. I don’t know if he’s a first-team all-American, just because his team hasn’t had the success. Like, that’s like saying like Antoine Davis at Detroit Mercy led the nation scoring a couple years ago. Max Abmas has done that as well when he was at Oral Roberts, and they weren’t all-Big East guys. I think he deserves to have to be on one of three AP All-American teams, or maybe, I mean, at the very least it can be an honorable mention. There’s no question about that. You don’t leave the nation’s leading scorer out of that category. But first team, it just seems a little too far-fetched with the amount of talent that’s in not just the Big East, but in college basketball, but he deserves it all-Big East first team spot, I do, I do agree with you on that.
Well, I think that there are really three guys who have absolutely 100% solidified themselves on the Big East first team, and that is Dixon at the four, Kalkbrenner at the five, and Kam Jones at the two. That leaves us with a great pool of players. And I think the players you have to consider for it’s the one and the three we’re missing, right?
Well, let’s start with the one. Kadary Richmond and Steven Ashworth, I think are the only real contenders there. Kadary Richmond, of St John’s, Steven Ashworth of Creighton. I think both of them have done a really good job this season.
And then you talk about other players at the three, I mean, Karaban doesn’t deserve spot. Liam McNeeley could, I think, of UConn. Alex Karaban has just had such a down year. He had a 50–40-90 regular season last year. Just since that Villanova game, missing those two free throws, he hasn’t been the same and since that injury that sidelined him at the Texas game, I think he hasn’t been the same player that he was the last two years. And he’s more of a four than a three, even though you could slide him over in this case because of, I mean, Dixon’s a much more of a true for and he’s a stretch four too. But who else do you think besides McNeeley?
I think there are for the point guard spot, the one, I think there are two contenders, and I think it’s Ashworth and Richmond. Yes, I think they’ll go back and forth at that spot. If we were to do this by position, I know it’s a little different voting. I would vote for Richmond right now, just because he’s a Big East Player of the Year candidate, like we’ve said.
And I think at the three, there aren’t too many contenders. I think RJ Luis can easily be considered for that. I mean, he’s listed as a guard, but he’s easily has the build to play a wing position, like the small forward position. I mean, he’s six foot seven. Isn’t that a true guard? I think you can slide him in at four. I think that there’s a, there’s a pool of guys about eight or nine strong that’ll be vying for the five spots. And I think because some of these teams possess two sometimes, you can make the argument that St John’s could have three guys on these Big East teams. I think that these, all of these teams, have legitimate chances at winning this tournament. I think we had to put Luis. KenPom has him actually at the four,
which is strange because I don’t think that he doesn’t play like a your, he doesn’t play like your Tim Duncan or Karl Malone or Dirk Nowitzki type of player. He’s much more of a skinny frame than that, which I think is much more of a small forward type of deal.
To summarize, Richmond, Jones, Luis, Dixon, Kalkbrenner. Yep.
I mean and Kalkbrenner would be the Big East Player of the Year. But there’s a weird thing that the Big East does where they don’t put the Big East Player of the Year on the first team. Who would you put in for Kalkbrenner? As a true center? Oh, wait, Ejiofor, it’s probably gonna be Ejiofor. Yeah. They may have three all-Big East, first team guys. That’s remarkable. And he’s gonna win Big East Most Improved Player. That’s a lock as well.
So, I mean, all right, we’re painting this to be St John’s conference, to lose, I don’t think that’s true. Yeah, it’s not true at all. Do you want to list their shooting numbers? Because they’re downright horrible. All right, I can, if you want me to. I think, I think the listeners want to know this. So St John’s is ranked on KenPom, which is, you know, the godfather of college basketball databases, just like how Pitino is the godfather of college basketball right now. They are ranked second defensively in the country, out of 364
teams. So that is pretty good, but, in terms of offense, they’re ranked 72nd right now. That number has gone up recently. They were in the bottom 200 for a while, and what they strive on is relying on these defense, especially in zone defenses, where they drop back and they allow these mid-range looks, these long two pointers, or these kind of fade away jumpers from the blocks and the paint. Richmond’s great at that, by the way. So is Luis. That’s where they score all their points. But when you look at their effective field goal percentage, which takes into account the amount of attempts and makes from both two-point range and three-point range, 247th nationally, 49.6%. That is not good.
And three-point shooting lies they are 338th in America. There are only 364 teams, so this team can downright not shoot, and I feel like if they get a matchup like Creighton, who is fully healthy, or Marquette, who has a bunch of very capable shooters, including Kam Jones, they can get in some trouble early, especially If they fall behind against some of these athletic, streaky offensive teams. You can even throw UConn in there. I just think that their offense has struggled lately, yes, but I mean, you look at them last night, they can play like what they were last night, especially in the second half. They could be really good. But the thing is, Karaban, Alex Karaban didn’t play well at all.
Let’s segue into the other contenders for the Big East Championship. So Creighton’s got the shooting. I think they were the most balanced team in the league. I think they’re the most balanced team just, I mean, you got a guy in the paint like Kalkbrenner that could really produce.
And you know who’s actually really surprised me. And if Luis didn’t exist, or Ejiofor, excuse me, didn’t exist, this guy would win, uh, Most Improved Player, maybe: Jamiya Neal.
Yeah, I love how you gave a little smirk there. You knew exactly who I was talking about. I think Isaac Traudt was a very good offensive player as well. Like, they have weapons. They’re not deep, though they’re not deep. Yeah, like, if Kalkbrenner gets into foul trouble, Frederick King cannot hold his own. No, he cannot hold his own. And that’s not knocking him. It’s just that to play the biggies level, that’s just that’s a different animal, especially.
Actually, the five position when you have other fives, like Ejiofor, the tandem at UConn, Samson Johnson and Tarris Reed Jr., I think can, can really disrupt that if Kalkbrenner does go down.
So let’s, let’s start now talking about, who do you think? Who do we think? And we might agree on this, who will make the Big East Championship Game, and who’s going to win it? I think it’s Creighton over St John’s. I think that Marquette and Creighton get it done. I think they defeat one of them will defeat St John’s, and one of them will defeat Connecticut. The one thing I don’t like about Marquette, the frontcourt in a bit, especially the five losing, losing, what’s his face, Ighodaro. Thank you. Thank you for the assist there, a lot like what Tyler Kolek did last year.
I mean, their backcourt and the wings are, I mean, you can’t knock that. David Joplin’s been pretty good, especially from three, but um, Ben Gold, I don’t know. He’s a little bit fragile, and I don’t know he doesn’t have the best feel for the game, in my opinion.
What are your thoughts on him and how he can help that paved the way to yet, I think a third straight Big East title game appearance? Well, all right, Marquette is so athletic at all four other positions, and they have four true scorers on the court at all times, and they have people off the bench where I think Ben Gold becomes this tertiary score that isn’t really relied upon a lot. And I don’t think he’s really necessary for them to I don’t
think he’s really necessary for them to make the Big East title game. I think he will be necessary if they want to win the Big East title game, where they’re going to have to match up against Ryan Kalkbrenner or Zuby Ejiofor. I think Marquette beat St John’s
flat out in the championship, in the semis, wherever they meet, wherever.
I think St John’s just the thing is, I hate being against Rick Pitino. I think if you’re betting against Rick Pitino is like betting against Tom Brady almost. He’s the best opposing coach I’ve seen in my time watching UConn basketball, and I’ve watched it all my life, and I’ve seen a lot of coaches, Mike Krzyewski, Roy Williams, Bill Self, you name it, Tom Izzo, who, by the way, might actually win national coach of the year. I think, I think Tom Izzo should win it, but Pitino is up there as well. But yeah, I mean just the defense-to-offense type of scheme, their mid-rangers. I mean it. I don’t know if we have a stat on mid-rangers, but I think if you, if you were to find that, I think you see high percentages from St John’s there because of what they can do, they’re lethal there. And then, I mean, Ejiofor can not I mean, he’s really good in the paint, but he can also stretch a little bit to the mid range. They don’t really shoot threes. I mean, that they brought Deivon Smith for that reason, and it just hasn’t worked as well. But he’s still been a huge contributor to them. Rick Pitino has said he reminds him of Louisville’s Peyton Siva, who’s an all-Big East first-team guy, I believe, back in the old Big East.
So, yeah, I think that Creighton is the most balanced and the most balanced team, in my opinion, always seems to prevail. That’s why, that’s how my mindset is going to March madness and these conference tournaments, which we will pick on, on themagic8ball.net,
but, but, yeah, I, and I, and we do have different takes on this, which I think is great. I just think that you can’t knock the defense that St John’s has. And I think they know how to lead. And plus Madison Square Garden, they, they, they’ve done so well here, not here there, and that’s something that it’s going to be it’s gonna be really fun. I can’t wait to go to New York for that, because it’s gonna be really fun.
So let’s so to summarize for our listeners, because especially me, but also Jake as well, we like to go on tangents, but Player of the Year, Ryan Kalkbrenner. Freshman of the Year, Liam McNeeley. Coach of the Year, Rick Pitino, I mean, that was quite obvious. And then most improved player, oh, we didn’t say sixth man.
I think Tarris Reed, honestly, yeah, I think that’s a very I think Tarris Reed no bias, no bias, no bias. The fact that he doesn’t start still surprised me with how much darn potential he has,
and if he did start the entire year, who knows where UConn could have been, because he plays such an Adama Sanogo-like big.
So Tarris Reed Jr. from UConn at the sixth man, and then most improved player to be Ejiofor. I think we both agree with that. Jake’s nodding.
And then our first team, we agreed, Kadary Richmond, Kam Jones, RJ Luis Jr, then Eric Dixon, Villanova, and then Ryan Kalkbrenner, who’s also our Player of the Year. And then I said that Creighton beats St John’s in the Big East championship.
I actually didn’t give my title prediction yet. Yeah, I believe that Creighton will beat Marquette in the Big East championship. And both would be great, great games.
Then we talked about most surprising positive team in the right direction was Georgetown for us. And then most most disappointing was Providence with and that was without, without hesitation, just because of the Bryce Hopkins injury and everything, and how great Bryce Hopkins was two years ago.
But yeah, so that’s gonna wrap us up for the Road to Manhattan. Hope you enjoyed listening and, yeah, there’s a lot of great games this weekend, including, I’ll be in Providence for UConn at Providence on Saturday afternoon. That’ll be an exciting one. But until, until then, I’m Sam Calhoun. I’m Jake McCreven. And you’ve been listening to the Road to Manhattan.
Links to Research:
