Everything changes once college basketball becomes a win-or-go-home. The madness of March starts with the conference tournaments and none is more exciting than the Big East. Madison Square Garden has been the stage for countless college basketball stars cementing themselves as legends of the sport’s most important month, and this week the conference converges on the mecca once again.
It’s not always the case, but from Ray Allen to Gerry McNamara to Kemba Walker to Isaiah Whitehead, sometimes a single player takes over the entire tournament. These 5 have the potential to do something special this week in New York City and lead their team to a Big East title.
St. John’s is the No. 1 seed and the tournament favorite. Kadary Richmond, Zuby Ejiofor, and RJ Luis Jr. are capable of dominating at MSG, but if somebody else is going to rip the Big East title away from Rick Pitino’s group, it will likely be on the back of one of these five players.
Georgetown’s tournament hopes took a significant blow when freshman center Thomas Sorber went out for the season in mid-February. So, Ed Cooley’s Hoyas will need to steal an automatic bid for a spot in the big dance, and fifth-year senior Micah Peavy is their best chance.
Over the past 10 games, Peavy is averaging 22.7 points, 4.1 assists and 6.9 rebounds a game. He’s managed a 58.5% effective field goal percentage while shouldering a 28% usage rate and is knocking down nearly half of his 5.3 three-point attempts a game during that stretch. The 6-foot-8 senior wing will need a massive tournament to carry the No. 7 seed Hoyas to a spot in the NCAA Tournament, and with how hot he’s been lately, it’s not inconceivable.
Solo Ball is the only player on this list who is not a member of the All-Big East First Team, but if he gets hot, Dan Hurley’s sophomore guard might be the scariest player in the league. When freshman forward Liam McNeeley went out with a midseason ankle injury, Ball got aggressive and found his rhythm from deep, peaking in a 77-69 win over Marquette with seven made threes on just nine attempts. He’s at 42.8% from deep on nearly seven attempts a game this season and is averaging 14.8 points.
The loss of Tristen Newton from last year’s team still looms large for the Huskies. UConn doesn’t have a reliable ball-handler and looks to balance the playmaking responsibilities between Ball and senior guard Hassan Diarra, which can put the sophomore in a tough spot. However, if Hurley gives Ball the greenlight and he’s snaking off of screens looking for his shot, he could have a legendary tournament performance.
How do you stop a 7-foot-1 270-pound center when he has the ball in the paint? The answer is that you probably don’t. The only hope for the rest of the Big East against Kalkbrenner has been preventing him from ever touching the ball.
Kalkbrenner started the year red-hot, scoring 49 points in the season-opener. Then, he hit a lull and when transfer guard Pop Isaacs went out for the season with an injury, the Bluejays had a crisis of identity. Greg McDermott was forced to rely solely on Steven Ashworth for perimeter playmaking and entry passes to Kalkbrenner got that much more difficult.
Kalkbrenner is one of the most efficient scorers in the country and he’s a defensive force for well over 30 minutes a night. There isn’t a player in the Big East who can slow him down one-on-one, so if Ashworth and the rest of the Creighton guards can get him the ball and give him some help, he could cap his legendary career with the program’s first-ever Big East Tournament title.
The last time Marquette won a Big East Tournament title in 2023, a sophomore Kam Jones struggled in the championship game, going 4-13 from the field for 11 points. Tyler Kolek, however, carried the Golden Eagles to a 65-51 win over Xavier. Now, in Jones’s first season without Kolek, he’ll need to be great for Marquette to go from a five-seed to a conference crown.
Jones is third in the league in points per game, second in assists, and despite his hefty usage rate is shooting 48.5% from the field. He’s an athletic driver with an unusually high but remarkably tight handle which makes him difficult to keep out of the paint. Jones averages 11.3 paint points a game and is Marquette’s best half-court creator.
Shaka Smart’s group thrives in transition and generating points off turnovers, but when things slow down in a tournament setting, it’s up to Jones to have an answer.
When Eric Dixon first arrived at Villanova under Jay Wright in 2020-21, he averaged just three points in 8.2 minutes a game and shot 25% from deep. Now, as a fifth-year senior, Dixon is the leading scorer in the Big East and is knocking down 43% of his seven threes a game. Dixon has by far the highest usage rate in the conference at 34.5% and yet manages a 60.6% true shooting percentage. At 6-foot-8 he has a score-first mentality and has kept the Wildcats afloat through another disappointing year under Kyle Neptune.