Bubbles Bursting: Seton Hall-Notre Dame Big East Tournament Preview

For NCAA Tournament bubble teams, seasons can boil down into one or two do-or-die games in a conference tournament. This gives coaches ulcers, but is what makes March so great for college hoops fans.

One such game will happen at the Big East Tournament Wednesday, when seventh seeded Notre Dame takes on 10th seeded Seton Hall. Both of these teams are precariously on the bubble, and a win could be enough to push that team into the field of 65.

This game should be a very exciting one to watch. Both teams score the ball well and do not play a lot of defense. In fact, these are two of the Big East's least efficient defenses together. Both the Pirates and the Fighting Irish are giving up over 1.05 points per possession.

Notre Dame, however, has a decided advantage on offense. They are the best offense in the Big East, scoring 1.14 points per possession. Additionally, both teams play relatively up-tempo, so a high scoring game should be expected.

In their only regular season matchup, Seton Hall won, 90-87. Our Big East Tournament projections have Notre Dame winning about 57 percent of the time.

One key stat in this game will be turnovers. Seton Hall is the best in the Big East in taking care of the ball, only turning it over only 12.4 percent of the time.

Conversely, Notre Dame is the worst in the Big East at forcing turnovers. This played a large role in the regular season matchup, where the Pirates only turned the ball over 11 percent of the time, while forcing 19 percent turnovers from Notre Dame in their tight win.

If Seton Hall is to win again, they would likely need to repeat this performance.

The key for Notre Dame will be to stop Seton Hall from shooting lights out. In the regular season matchup, their defense allowed Seton Hall to have the second best shooting night of their whole season.

On this front, there is reason for hope for Irish fans.  In their last two games against Connecticut and Marquette, Notre Dame limited their opponents to near season lows in field goal percentage.

By John Ezekowitz courtesy of TeamRankings.com