Big East Roundup: Creighton Drops St. John’s, UConn Survives Scare

With the first full week of basketball in the book for Big East teams since returning from the holiday break, just three teams remain unbeaten in conference play.

Marquette picked up a crushing 78-50 road win over Providence before eking out a 79-71 win over Creighton at home in a match whose outcome hung in the balance in the final minutes. Similarly, UConn beat DePaul by 13 on the road, then needed last minute heroics to slip past Providence 87-84 at home, while Georgetown gutted out a 69-63 win over Xavier, a résumé booster for a 12-2 team still trying to earn legitimacy after going 2-18 in conference play last season.

Villanova slots into the next group, teams with just one conference loss so far, their Dec. 21 road defeat to a Creighton team that no one wants to face, while St. John’s joined them in that category on Tuesday, Dec. 31, missing a buzzer beater to fall 57-56 to that same Blue Jays buzzsaw.

Creighton sits at 2-2 in conference play, occupying the No. 59 spot in the NET Rankings after dropping the Red Storm, then picking up a Quad 1 loss at Marquette, while Xavier picked up their first conference win, beating up on the pitiful Seton Hall Pirates on Dec. 31. Providence, similarly, has just one Big East win, beating DePaul in overtime in mid-December, but they’ve played St. John’s and UConn close in recent weeks.

Seton Hall, DePaul and Butler all remain winless in Big East play. Here’s a look at the standings as week 10 of the 2024-25 men’s college basketball season begins.

Big East Standings (as of Jan. 6, 2025)