The big conference tournament preview: N.J. hits NYC, AC, etc.

An overview of conference tournament week for Rutgers, Seton Hall, Princeton, Rider, Saint Peter's and two women's teams.

Most coaches and many athletes offer up the same platitudes when asked bigger-picture questions. What do you think about your new AP ranking/your NET/your chances to get an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, that thing every team is striving for? “Honestly, we’re just taking things one game at a time.”

We know the coaches do monitor their metrics. It’s their job to see what’s working, what isn’t working and what might need to be done differently next year. This led to a refreshing interaction with Princeton women’s coach Carla Berube after the Tigers beat Dartmouth on March 2, when we asked whether she pays attention to their NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool, a key sorting tool for the tournament selection committee) this time of year.

“I check the NET ranking every day just to see where we’re at,” Berube said. “It’s a really important piece of this postseason. If Columbia and Princeton are both tied for first place, it goes to the NET ranking. Yeah, it’s something I look at and see where we’re at. We’ve got a pretty good NET ranking and that’s because we had a really challenging nonconference schedule and the conference has done well. Yeah, I check that once a day and that’s it.”

It only changes once a day, I pointed out, so we could share a laugh.

“But it has no bearing on what we’re doing in our day-to-day,” Berube concluded.

Berube’s foreshadowing was uncanny. At 13-1, Princeton and Columbia shared the Ivy League regular-season title for the second straight year, meaning Princeton earned the No. 1 seed thanks to a much better NET number at the close of the regular season. Rival Columbia must play the tougher first-round opponent, Harvard, which beat the Lions last year.

Princeton’s NET is a very healthy 33, so if something happens to it at Ivy Madness, where Columbia gets to enjoy home-court advantage after the Tigers had it this time last year, we should be looking at a two-bid Ivy. Princeton would be more than deserving of an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

With that said, let’s preview the week to come for the New Jersey teams still alive, with a quick breakdown of each team’s first game and a prediction for each conference tournament.

Men

Big Ten tournament: No. 13 Rutgers vs. No. 12 Maryland, Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in Minneapolis

I’m organizing these sections in chronological order, which helps us get the Scarlet Knights out of the way first. This team has reverted to its old ways on offense and is increasingly hard to watch. After winning their first four games with Jeremiah Williams eligible, the magic of having him in the lineup wore off and they finished with six losses in seven games, including 73-51 to Ohio State on Senior Day.

“You have another opportunity ahead of you,” Steve Pikiell said Sunday. “That’s the great part of these tournaments. You can go on a run. We’ve done it before. We did it at Madison Square Garden a few years back, so you’ve got a new opportunity and we’ll get right back to practice.”

Assuming Rutgers makes it past Maryland, it would play No. 5 seed Wisconsin, which stands as an incredibly vulnerable team ripe for an upset both this week and in March Madness. Rutgers knows it has won that game in the past and has some favorable matchups. If the Scarlet Knights somehow pull that upset, I don’t think they’d get past the next opponent in the bracket, No. 4 Northwestern.

Prediction: On Wednesday, the easiest thing to do is to bet the under. First to 55 wins when these glacial offenses collide.

Big East tournament: No. 4 Seton Hall vs. No. 5 St. John’s, Thursday at 2:30 p.m. in New York

Now we’re talking! This Big East tournament delivers not only Round 3 of the Ed Cooley Revenge Series, Providence vs. Georgetown, but also the New York-area rivalry of Seton Hall vs. St. John’s – likely for the right to face No. 1 UConn in Friday’s semifinals.

Seton Hall didn’t sweep many teams this season, but St. John’s is one of them. The Pirates beat them in two different ways, dismantling the Red Storm at home by putting together a 28-0 run spanning the two halves, then rallying from 19 down on Long Island. St. John’s is on a five-game winning streak ever since that second loss and subsequent press conference heard ’round the world, but three of those wins came over Georgetown and DePaul – those Ws were basically predetermined.

I’ll be in the building Thursday to see how much of an X factor the Madison Square Garden crowd is for St. John’s. Against almost any other team, it would just be a St. John’s home game, so drawing Seton Hall and potentially UConn is really funny – they’re the two fan bases that can make sure the seats are closer to 60/40 than a full Red Storm.

While Kadary Richmond rightfully made the All-Big East first team on Sunday, Dre Davis earned Big East Player of the Week for the first time just as his senior season wraps up. Fine, his career-high 28-point outing came against DePaul, but Davis was just as critical in providing 18 points and seven rebounds in 40 minutes against Villanova the game before. This is known as “peaking at the right time.” He could have an awesome tournament.

Prediction: Seton Hall hands Rick Pitino and company an early exit before staying with UConn deep into the second half. Either way, the Pirates will hear their names called for the NCAA Tournament field and won’t have to play in the First Four.

MAAC tournament: No. 4 Rider vs. No. 5 Saint Peter’s, Thursday at 9 p.m. in Atlantic City

This must be my favorite game on the docket this week. Just one week after Rider beat Saint Peter’s in an entertaining if foul-ridden game at the Broncs Zoo, the New Jersey rivals must play a third time at Boardwalk Hall.

Please refer to my story from Lawrenceville last week if you haven’t already. Mervin James was assessed a flagrant-2 foul for retaliation after… let’s call it making contact with the back of Mouhamed Sow’s head. It wasn’t a close-fisted punch but was certainly in the shove category. It was his second ejection of the season, leading to some concern he might face even more punishment after sitting out the final 16:22 of his Senior Night game, but Kyle Franko at the Trentonian reported that no supplemental discipline is coming.

So James will be in the lineup, and the blood will be bad between these already physical teams. James is likely going to win MAAC Player of the Year honors, but let’s not forget Corey Washington on the other side. In the teams’ first meeting, Washington suffered a shoulder injury that disrupted the course of the Peacocks’ season – they lost to Rider at home and dropped four other games before his return prompted a five-game winning streak. In the second meeting with Rider, Washington was the most dominant player on the floor (22 points, 12 rebounds) and Saint Peter’s led most of the second half before the Broncs’ game-ending surge.

While Rider ended the regular season on a seven-game winning streak, Saint Peter’s has won the rivals’ last four meetings in the MAAC tournament – including a 70-62 upset in the quarterfinals last year, when Rider was the No. 2 seed, as Bashir Mason beat Kevin Baggett in his first MAAC tourney coaching the Peacocks.

Prediction: I’ve heard good arguments for the Broncs. No doubt they’re the hottest team in the league right now and can adapt to any style. I’m just not convinced of their ability to get it done in the tournament until I see it. Give me Saint Peter’s straight up, getting revenge for a regular-season sweep once again. If the Peacocks then draw No. 1 seed Quinnipiac in the semifinals, I don’t like the matchup; Quinnipiac found ways to score 84 and 89 points on the Saint Peter’s defense and ranks 12th in Division I in free-throw percentage.

Ivy League tournament: No. 1 Princeton vs. No. 4 Brown, Saturday at 11 a.m. in New York

Speaking of Princeton and the NET! The Tigers cracked the top 50 after steamrolling Penn 105-83 in the season finale on Saturday, which clinched them the outright league title because Brown shocked Yale in overtime. Princeton’s NET of 48 is higher than South Carolina’s, Virginia’s, Utah’s and (cough) Seton Hall’s, yet three if not all four of those teams are going to get at-large bids to the tournament and the Tigers remain a longshot for the same due to their lack of high-end wins to make the committee salivate.

Sorry to dwell on one game, but Princeton went to the Palestra and dropped 100 points on a D1 opponent in a non-overtime game for the first time since Nov. 25, 2015 against Lafayette. The Tigers averaged 1.59 points per possession, by my calculations. This, too, is known as “peaking at the right time.”

Here’s the thing about semifinal opponent Brown: While the Ivy was a three-horse race all season, the Bears aren’t just there to fill out the bracket. Princeton only beat them by 10 and nine points in their regular-season meetings, and they went on to win their final six games, beating both Cornell and Yale on the road. Brown’s got multiple guys who can fill up the basket in Kino Lilly Jr., Nana Owusu-Anane and, more recently, Kimo Ferrari, who exploded for 39 against Dartmouth (shooting 10-of-12 from three).

You cannot assume this is a walkover for the Tigers, but they are far more experienced than Brown, which will make its first appearance in Ivy Madness since it was instituted in 2017. This is still better than having to play an explosive Cornell team in the 2-3 game.

Prediction: In November I wrote, “give me Yale over Princeton in the Ivy final.” Right now, I have to take Princeton after the season it’s had and the way the offense looked on Saturday. That covers half the field. Either way I should be correct, unless Cornell pulls the double-stunner over Yale and Princeton.

The rest

• Monmouth blasted Campbell 90-67 in the CAA tournament’s 8-versus-9 game on Saturday, but the Hawks couldn’t keep up with a very good Charleston team, the league’s top seed, and fell 83-59 Sunday. Xander Rice was held to 16 points on 5-of-18 shooting (2-of-10 from three); coach King Rice’s son wrapped his lone season in West Long Branch averaging 20.4 points per game, one of a select group in Division I to finish with 20 or more. On the whole, this was a big step in the right direction for Monmouth in its second season in the CAA.

• NJIT and FDU were already eliminated from postseason contention.

Women

Ivy League tournament: No. 1 Princeton vs. No. 4 Penn, Friday at 4:30 p.m. in New York

Not terribly much to add here following my intro. The Tigers just beat semifinal opponent Penn by 17 points in the regular-season finale. They’ve won 18 of their last 19 games and their four losses this year came by a total of 16 points. They made it to the second round of the tournament as a double-digit seed two years in a row before losing to Indiana by one point in 2022 and Utah by seven in 2023. This program is built to succeed in March.

Prediction: The Tigers win a close final over Columbia and are given a No. 8 or 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament – which they deserve, but which dispatches them to the campus site of a No. 1 seed for the first two rounds. Playing Caitlin Clark at Iowa or JuJu Watkins at USC isn’t the ideal path to getting to that elusive Sweet 16.

CAA tournament: No. 2 Monmouth vs. TBD, Friday at 5 p.m. in Washington

Monmouth, which ran the table last year in its first season in the Coastal Athletic Conference, returns to the conference tournament as the second seed. The Hawks won their final seven games of the regular season to earn a double-bye; they’ll face the winner between No. 7 Drexel and No. 10 Delaware. If you’re interested in more, I’ll be publishing a feature about the Hawks on Tuesday.

Prediction: This team will make the semifinals at the very least. If they meet No. 3 seed Charleston there, guess what? Monmouth swept them in the regular season, with Ariana Vanderhoop scoring 26 in the latter game. The top seed in the CAA is Stony Brook, but it’s highly possible Monmouth is an NCAA Tournament team two years running.

The rest

• Seton Hall put up a fight against No. 21-ranked and second-seeded Creighton in Saturday’s Big East quarterfinals. Neither team led by more than five until the fourth quarter, but Creighton pulled away 72-65. In all likelihood, the Pirates are going to the WNIT for the third year running, where they could be a tough out with the way things seem to be clicking now. Azana Baines (15.1 points, 6.0 rebounds per game) was named to the All-Big East First Team.

• FDU is the Northeast Conference’s third seed and plays its tournament opener against Long Island on Monday night. Rider and Saint Peter’s are the eighth and 10th seeds in the MAAC tournament this week, respectively.

• Rutgers and NJIT were already eliminated from postseason contention.