First week of league play

[cr8onbb]

Like XUFan points out, my picks were mostly based on where the game was played. If SJU was playing at home, I would have picked them in both. Looking forward to NYE!

[redmen9194]

My Picks:

Tuesday, Dec 31
SJU
PC
G-Town
Nova
Creighton 10pm

Saturday, Jan 4
SJU
Xavier
Marq
Creighton

Sunday, Jan 5
Nova

[XU85]

The Cintas will be crazy on New Years Eve, including fireworks and t-shirts for all. It's tough for opponents to come away with a win under normal circumstances, so I expect St. Johns to have their work cut out for them. I imagine Butler and especially Creighton have similar festivities planned?

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/xavier/2013 ... ast-debut/

[Bluejay]

The Cintas will be crazy on New Years Eve, including fireworks and t-shirts for all. It's tough for opponents to come away with a win under normal circumstances, so I expect St. Johns to have their work cut out for them. I imagine Butler and especially Creighton have similar festivities planned?

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/xavier/2013 ... ast-debut/

No fireworks or T-shirts for all at Creighton.... Just a couple of extra hours of pregame drinking! Expect the crowd to be loud and well-primed... Downtown establishments have changed long standing NYE events into Blue themed events. Should be a fun time in downtown Omaha on NYE...

(The game has been sold out since August. No need to spend a lot of funds on marketing it further. I think we have a tribute to past Creighton coaches and maybe a big halftime show planned, but that is all...)

[Jays26]

The Cintas will be crazy on New Years Eve, including fireworks and t-shirts for all. It's tough for opponents to come away with a win under normal circumstances, so I expect St. Johns to have their work cut out for them. I imagine Butler and especially Creighton have similar festivities planned?

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/xavier/2013 ... ast-debut/

No fireworks or T-shirts for all at Creighton.... Just a couple of extra hours of pregame drinking! Expect the crowd to be loud and well-primed... Downtown establishments have changed long standing NYE events into Blue themed events. Should be a fun time in downtown Omaha on NYE...

(The game has been sold out since August. No need to spend a lot of funds on marketing it further. I think we have a tribute to past Creighton coaches and maybe a big halftime show planned, but that is all...)

I know it's not put on by Creighton, or has anything to do with the game but the City of Omaha does has a fireworks show downtown by the CenturyLink center at midnight.

[OutlawWales]

The Cintas will be crazy on New Years Eve, including fireworks and t-shirts for all. It's tough for opponents to come away with a win under normal circumstances, so I expect St. Johns to have their work cut out for them. I imagine Butler and especially Creighton have similar festivities planned?

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/xavier/2013 ... ast-debut/

No fireworks or T-shirts for all at Creighton.... Just a couple of extra hours of pregame drinking! Expect the crowd to be loud and well-primed... Downtown establishments have changed long standing NYE events into Blue themed events. Should be a fun time in downtown Omaha on NYE...

(The game has been sold out since August. No need to spend a lot of funds on marketing it further. I think we have a tribute to past Creighton coaches and maybe a big halftime show planned, but that is all...)

Quick Change at halftime!

Plus big festivities like a momentum-ruining putting contest that happens every game, despite every single fan in the place despising it; Dave Webber m-c-ing a goofy shooting contest to win a car, and a super-sized bozo the clown "get the ball in each bucket" game that nobody is ever going to come close to winning. Plus they will do the "show your card" giveaway where they give a gift card to somebody in the prime seats who doesn't need it instead of showing anyone in the upper bowl, and they'll throw out t-shirts that only get to the first three or four rows of seating -- apparently they've disbanded the t-shirt cannon after the kid operating it failed to ever get shirts into the upper bowl with it last year. Those will be the big festivities -- and I won't care at all because hopefully the Jays will be rolling on the court!

You would think they'd have some kind of t-shirt promo or something, but I haven't heard anything at all about it so far.

Oh -- and usually the fireworks downtown are actually pretty early, like 7 or 8 pm, instead of midnight.

[cr8onbb]

Yes, the downtown Omaha fireworks are at 7:00. Will surely be a lively scene here on NYE.

[notkirkcameron]

Sadly, I already have the Marquette-Creighton game pegged as a loss for the Warriors.

Creighton is an awfully tough place to play (one of the few NCAA arenas bigger than the Bradley Center).

Also, it seems set up a lot like Marquette's first game in the Big East. Home teams just don't lose those games. They feed off the crowd. MU was unranked in their first Big East game, and #2 UConn came into Milwaukee and Steve Novak just WENT OFF and Marquette ran the Huskies off the floor. Fortunately MU gets to lick its wounds a few days later against DePaul at home.

As for picks, I'll go
Dec 31
Xavier over St. John's
Providence over Seton Hall
Georgetown over DePaul
Butler (upset!) over Villanova
Creighton over Marquette

Jan 4/5
Georgetown over St. john's
Xavier over Butler
Marquette over DePaul
Creighton over Seton Hall
Villanova over Providence

So on January 6th, the standings will look like this
1. Georgetown 2-0
1. Creighton 2-0
1. Xavier 2-0
4. Marquette 1-1
4. Butler 1-1 (tiebreaker over Villanova)
6. Villanova 1-1 (tiebreaker over Providence)
7. Providence 1-1
8. St. John's 0-2
8. DePaul 0-2
8. Seton Hall 0-2

[marquette]

(one of the few NCAA arenas bigger than the Bradley Center).

The Bradley Center is bigger (slightly), but Creighton draws more. BC has a max capacity of 20,000 on the dot. CLink maxes as 18,975.

[hoyahooligan]

Tuesday, Dec 31 all on FS1
SJU @ Xavier Noon
SHU @ PC 2:30
DePaul @ G-Town 5pm
Nova @ Butler 7:30
Marq @ Creighton 10pm

Saturday, Jan 4
SJU @ G-Town 1pm FS1
Butler @ Xavier 2pm FSN
DePaul @ Marq 2pm CBSSN
Creighton @ SHU 3pm FS1

Sunday, Jan 5
PC @ Nova 7pm FS1

Really tempted to pick St. John's in their game @ xavier because I think St. John's matches up well, but I feel like the X men will be too pumped to lose that game with it being their first BE home game.

I think DePaul and Seton Hall will win a max of 6 BE games combined, not each. I think there's going to be plenty of separation in the league.