Big East Basketball Power Rankings: Providence, Xavier surging

Xavier still sits at the No. 7 spot in my Big East Power Rankings but it has now clearly separated itself from the bottom three of the league. Over the past week, the Musketeers went on the road and secured back-to-back wins over Seton Hall and DePaul. The former of these was incredibly impressive as they simply controlled the matchup on both ends of the floor.

It appears as though Xavier might have finally figured things out and that makes it very dangerous moving forward. There’s a reason why the Muskies were widely regarded as a fringe Top 25 team in the preseason.

Xavier now holds a 15-8 (4-6 BE) record and is sitting firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble. I included the Musketeers in my most recent bracketology update (Feb. 7th) but only in the “Last Four In” section as a No. 11 seed. They definitely still have work to do in order to move into a less precarious position but that shouldn’t be an issue if they keep playing at the level of their last two games.

Xavier will play exactly four home and four road games over the final month of the regular season. Reaching .500 in conference would be great, but simply splitting the final eight might be enough to dance.

Xavier has huge opportunities remaining for Q1A wins as well with both Villanova and Butler heading to Cintas Center in the near future. This is a team that feels like it is clicking at the right time. It’s only a two-game sample size, though, so I need to see a bit more before I completely buy-in.