The Owls (3-3 Big East Conference) are still vying for a spot in the Big East tournament, and them clinching a spot will come down to the very end.
Louisville (6-0 Big East) and Georgetown (5-1 Big East) already have the No.1 and No. 2 seeds locked up, while Connecticut (4-2 Big East) has a spot in the tournament secured. The Huskies, however, still have to see whether they’ll be the No. 3 or No. 4 seed.
This leaves Temple in in a fight for the final spot with Villanova (3-3 Big East) and Rutgers (2-4 Big East).
The Owls will play Rutgers on Friday night, and Villanova will play UConn the next day.
If Temple wins and Villanova loses, the Owls are in. The opposite result sends the Wildcats to the tournament instead.
Any other scenario will put Temple and Villanova in a three-team tie with either UConn or Rutgers.
Should Temple and Villanova both lose their regular season finales, they will be tied with Rutgers for fourth in the Big East, with each team holding a 3-4 record.
All three teams lost to Louisville, Georgetown and UConn, and beat Marquette and Cincinnati. As a result, the tiebreaker will be determined by goal differential. The numbers aren’t set just yet, so the differentials won’t be calculated until both games are played.
If Temple and Villanova both win their final games, it puts them in a three-way tie with UConn for the third seed. In this scenario, all three teams would be 1-1 against each other. Villanova lost to Temple but would have beaten UConn, Temple lost to UConn but beat Villanova, and UConn beat Temple but lost to Villanova.
The tiebreaker would once again go to scoring differential. In instances such as Temple’s 19-3 win over Cincinnati on April 13, only a maximum of seven goals would count towards the differential.
Through the first six conference games for each team, UConn is plus-9, Rutgers is minus-3, and Temple and Villanova are each minus-7.
Rutgers would be eliminated in this situation, giving UConn the three seed and leaving Temple and Villanova in a head-to-head tiebreaker for the fourth seed. Because the Owls beat the Wildcats back on April 5, they would gain the advantage in the tiebreaker and clinch the fourth seed.
The Owls’ regular season finale at Rutgers starts at 7 p.m. on Friday night, and Villanova’s last game at UConn will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday.
