Big East Basketball Rankings: Villanova rising, Creighton struggling

After performing well in non-conference play and then taking down Providence on the road to begin the Big East schedule, many started to buy into Creighton as a future NCAA Tournament team. However, the Bluejays have since lost four consecutive games, including two at home, as they have started to plummet down the national rankings. Granted, all of these losses came against teams ranked in the KenPom top-50 but losing four in a row is always crushing. And considering the Big East is not full of opportunities for high-quality wins like the past few years, dropping all four of those games could turn out to be a killer down the road.

Looking ahead, head coach Greg McDermott has to be hoping that his team can return to winning ways soon. Thankfully, three of the Bluejays’ next four games will come at home but they have uncharacteristically already dropped four contests at the CenturyLink Center. Creighton needs to get on track and there should be no better place to do that than in front of their home crowd. Facing off against Butler and St. John’s, two teams who have already beaten the Bluejays, will not be easy and those represent a couple of the upcoming matchups.

In order for Creighton to get back to its winning ways, the team will need to play much better on the defensive end of the floor. The Bluejays have allowed their opponents to score at least 80 points in each of their last four games and their conference-only defensive efficiency is by far and away the worst in the Big East (120.6 – second-worst is DePaul at 109.2).