PC Will Play Winner of Cincinnati-DePaul Game in Big East Tournament

The PC Friars have earned the 8th seed in the Big East tournament and a 1st round bye. PC will then play the winner of the Cincinnati-DePaul game, via ProJo Sports:

Thanks to Syracuse's overtime win at Marquette on Saturday, Providence College will be the eighth seed for this week's Big East Tournament.

PC will play at noon on Wednesday against the winner of the first-round Cincinnati-DePaul game. The Bearcats lost to the Friars twice this season and are coming into New York after losing three straight to end the season, at Syracuse, at South Florida and at home in overtime to Seton Hall.

The PC-Cincy/DePaul winner is matched up against the number one seed in the Big East's quarterfinal round on Thursday. Louisville will be the number one seed if it wins at West Virginia Saturday night. If WVU springs the upset, Pittsburgh is the top seed.

The Friars have encountered major problems in the Big East tourney over the last decade, winning only 1 of their last 10 games.

There are a couple things not working in the Friars favor here. The first is that I'm not sure how much a victory over Cincinnati or DePaul would help them with their at-large bid chances. Obviously beating Cincinnati would be a better win then beating DePaul, but they have already beaten Cincinnati twice, so it really wouldn't add much to their resume to beat them a third time. The other problem is that it is tough to beat the same team three times in one season, so they also have that working against them. The only benefit of beating Cincinnati is that they keep their at-large hopes alive and will then get a shot at #1 seeded Louisville. Wins over Cincinnati and Louisville would make them a lock for the tournament in my mind. Beating Louisville would certainly be a tough task though.

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