:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66127695/1181467343.jpg.0.jpg)
GAME INFO:
Gametime: 3:30pm CT
Location: Omaha, NE
TV: FS1 / Fox Sports App
Providence radio: 630AM / 99.7FM
Creighton radio: 1620am / 101.9fm / 1620 The Zone App feat the voice of Xmus Jaxon Flaxon-Waxon Bishop
Weather at tip-off: 17° fahrenheit (feels like 2° fahrenheit), 17mph northwest winds, partly cloudy
BETTER PREVIEWS THAN THIS ONE:
Rob Anderson put together some in-depth notes for this tilt. It’s like he’s giving away free candy to us.
Tom Nemitz from White & Blue Review laid out how good Providence has been lately, among other things.
Kevin McNamara from the Providence Journal takes a peek at this matchup.
Here’s Jon Nyatawa’s scouting report to get you learn’t up for today’s game.
Verba de Ludorum
Creighton fans enjoy panic mode. Providence fans enjoy panic mode.
Together, they create a beautiful union, splashed across the entirety of the eastern United States. They share a common bond, being the easternmost university and the westernmost university, yet their fanbases are tethered to the sky-is-falling hip, overreacting to every loss with anger and disgust compared to the rest of the BIG EAST’s fanbases.
Maybe that’s not true, but it’s all relative, right?
Providence was bad in the non-conference when everyone expected them to be great. Creighton was great in the non-conference when everyone expected them to be bad. That’s an artful polarity that they share.
Nate Watson and Alpha Diallo were supposed to a wrecking ball combination, tearing through hapless opponents and contending for a BIG EAST crown. The former didn’t come to fruition, the latter is their lifeblood right now, starting the conference slate with a throttling of Georgetown, back-to-back squeakers against DePaul and Marquette, a convincing win at St. John’s, and a loss to a top-5 Butler team.
That’s enough to make the hair on your arms stand at attention.
Creighton, on the other hand, lost a pair of heartbreakers to Villanova and Georgetown, got pounded by Butler, but got a road win at Xavier and blew the doors off of Marquette. For the first time in a while, there’s complete parity in the league, and as of this writing DePaul is taking it to Butler and St. John’s is knotted up with Seton Hall.
That leaves us with today’s matchup, a hot Providence team against a pretty good Bluejay squad, in Omaha, while the city deals with ice and snow leftover from a storm on Friday. It’s going to be a masterclass in ugly basketball, because it always is when these two teams meet.