Creighton vs Xavier Odds, Pick for Saturday

If the Big East season ended today, the Creighton Bluejays and Xavier Musketeers would find themselves in an interesting position at Madison Square Garden.

Currently, these two teams are tied for fourth place in the conference, meaning they'd lock up the last two byes to avoid a Wednesday night opening round game. Instead, the Bluejays and Musketeers would meet in the quarterfinals on that Thursday night, with massive stakes at hand.

Lest we not get ahead of ourselves, Xavier and Creighton will first meet in Cincinnati on Saturday afternoon, desperate to hold that placement in the standings. A win for either side could invigorate a late-season run, particularly for a Xavier team grasping for the postseason bubble.

Here's Creighton vs. Xavier odds and a pick for Saturday.

When January closed, Creighton's chances for a Big East title seemed far-fetched, yet the Bluejays certainly seemed poised to continue nipping at UConn's heels. Instead, Greg McDermott's squad has stumbled, losing both of its games thus far in the month of February.

The Bluejays squandered a double-digit lead at home against Butler and couldn't finish off a road win at Providence, losing that one in overtime thanks to Devin Carter's late game miracle works.

The common themes in those two losses came on the defensive end of the floor, where both Butler and Providence topped 1.2 points per possession and 90 total points. Some of that can be explained away by shooting luck, though that is a much deeper story for a team like Creighton.

The Bluejays allow the single highest percentage of points via 2-point buckets, notably keeping teams away from the rim and forcing jumpers from inside the arc.

The Bluejays lead the nation in free-throw rate allowed and rank last in forcing turnovers. Creighton will force the issue on the defensive end by limiting looks from beyond the arc and not allowing anything cheap around the rim.

That's a safe gamble, except when those tough 3-pointers find the bottom of the net. Butler and Providence combined to hit exactly half their shots from downtown against Creighton, skewing the math on the Bluejays' game plan.

McDermott's bet that his team can outshoot yours is a sound one logically, yet when playing on the road in conference play or in the postseason, sometimes logic takes a punch in the mouth and you need another answer. The Bluejays will have a few more chances to show if they can find other ways to win.

Xavier is making a late push for an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament.

That's not surprising for a team that has kept its head mostly above water against one of then hardest schedules in the nation, fourth toughest per the NCAA's NET metric. It is surprising for a team that lost two starters to injury before the season even began and then lost home games to Oakland and Delaware in nonconference play.

To recover from that position, the Musketeers have needed to play really solid ball in the brutal Big East, which they've done. Xavier is 7-5 in conference, with the five losses coming to UConn (home and away) and in road dates at Creighton, Villanova and St. John's.

That's essentially holding serve to expectations, which bares out when you use point spreads as your baseline. As a favorite in Big East play, Xavier is 6-0 straight up, winning every game you'd expect. As an underdog, Xavier is 1-5, the lone win being a stolen victory on the road at Providence.

In a conference as good as the Big East, that would earn Xavier a look, but it wouldn't be enough to outweigh the Musketeers' early-season slip-ups. Sooner or later, this team needs to win a game it isn't expected to win. Perhaps that will come via the positive momentum Xavier is starting to build.

The three-headed perimeter attack of Desmond Claude, Dayvion McKnight and Quincy Olivari is potent, able to drill into the holes of most defenses.

Xavier has been really good on its home court in Big East play, notably winning games over St. John's, Butler, Villanova and Seton Hall. That's odd given how shaky this team was at home prior to conference play, dropping three straight (sandwiching an understandable loss to Houston with the Delaware and Oakland defeats).

I tend to think the new Xavier is here to stay. Sean Miller's rotation features just one player that was at Xavier last season, meaning the Musketeers needed to do a ton of learning on the fly. As the season has continued, they've done so, playing their best basketball in recent weeks.

While this could be a bounce-back spot for Creighton after a one-point loss and an overtime loss, this remains a tough spot. Miller is 3-1 ATS versus the Bluejays in the last two seasons, including a blowout win at last year's Big East Tournament.

Oddly, home favorites are covering just 40% of the time in the Big East this season, third worst in college hoops. That should normalize a bit, starting with the X-Men here.

Pick: Xavier -1.5