INDIANAPOLIS – Butler or Xavier, and usually both, have played in every NCAA basketball tournament since 2006. Now both could be left out of this year’s 68-team bracket.
Two rivals that badly need a victory meet Sunday in Cincinnati.
Xavier has made 16 of the past 18 NCAA tournaments and is 9-3 against Butler since both joined the Big East. The Musketeers are coming off an 81-75 victory over Georgetown, erasing a 17-point deficit without injured point guard Quentin Goodin.
Although too early to obsess over mock brackets, it is not too early to speculate on how many Big East teams make the NCAA field.