I’m not sure whether to call today’s ND-Marquette game at the Joyce Center a “must-win” for the Irish in their quest to qualify for the Big East Tournament. Certainly, a win would help. But the real must-win games are the last two, at Providence and vs. DePaul, since we’re in direct competition with those teams for the coveted 12th spot in the standings. A loss today would drop Notre Dame to 4-10 in conference, but at 6-10 they could still make the tournament… probably.

The Irish are currently 4-9. They’re guaranteed to stay ahead of South Florida (0-13) no matter what. Assuming Seton Hall (7-6), Syracuse (7-7) and Cincinnati (7-7) don’t go into ridiculous tailspins that bring them down into range of the #12 spot, Notre Dame needs to finish ahead of three of the following five teams:

Louisville (5-8) - at West Virginia, vs. Marquette, at UConn
Providence (5-8) - at Pittsburgh, vs. Notre Dame, at Marquette
Rutgers (5-9) - vs. South Florida, at St. John’s
St. John’s (5-9) - at Villanova, vs. Rutgers
DePaul (3-10) - vs. Seton Hall, vs. Syracuse, at Notre Dame

Notre Dame owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over Rutgers, and, if they beat Providence and DePaul, would own the head-to-head tiebreakers over those teams, too. (Hence my saying that those games are the “real must-wins.”) Louisville owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Irish. Notre Dame and St. John’s did not play each other this season. In a multiple-team tie (or an ND-St. John’s tie), things get complicated; here are the tiebreaker rules (PDF). As the end of the season gets closer, I’ll try to figure out the various scenarios, but at this point there are just too many variables.

Here’s one scenario I’ll figure out, though. Suppose Notre Dame loses today, but beats Providence and DePaul… and suppose all of the other teams in question manage one more win (which, looking at their schedules, seems fairly realistic). The result would be a five-way tie for 10th place:

Louisville (6-10)
Notre Dame (6-10)
Providence (6-10)
Rutgers (6-10)
St. John’s (6-10)

Heh. Well wouldn’t that just figure? DePaul (4-12) would be out, as would two of the five teams listed above — but which ones? Under the above-linked tiebreaker rules, the 6-10 teams form a “mini-conference” based on their records against one another. Assuming that St. John’s beat Rutgers, that mini-conference would look like this:

Notre Dame 3-1
St. John’s 3-1
Louisville 2-2
Providence 2-3
Rutgers 1-4

As you can see, the Irish would be solidly in the conference tournament as either the #10 or #11 seed under this scenario. (The ND-St. John’s tie would be broken by further tiebreakers which I don’t really care about at the moment.)

Different configurations of tied 6-10 teams would change the “mini-conference” records around, of course, but since Notre Dame’s only loss to any of the teams in question — assuming, again, they beat Providence — is the one loss to Louisville, it seems unlikely that they would lose any multi-team “mini-conference” tiebreaker. Unlikely, but not impossible.

(Of course, the Big East’s notorious “unbalanced schedule” renders this whole exercise completely and utterly unfair… unless someone thinks it somehow makes sense that Louisville gets the #12 seed ahead of Providence because the Friars played one more game against the relevant competition than the Cardinals did. Bah.)

So, is the Marquette game a “must-win”? Maybe. Probably not. We won’t know for sure until the season ends. So, as an insurance policy, especially since it’s at home, why not win it? Eh, guys? If nothing else, it would help erase the memory of one of Mike Brey’s game-deciding coaching mistakes. (Fire Mike Brey.)

GO IRISH! BEAT GOLDEN EAGLES! (Gametime is 6:00 PM.)

UPDATE: Here is the Big East scoreboard. So far, good news and bad news: Louisville lost to West Virginia, despite having led by a substantial margin early in the game. That’s the good news. The bad news? DePaul won to stay in the hunt. Later tonight: Providence at Pittsburgh.