Posts tagged ‘Big East Tournament’

NEW YORK — The hackneyed expression goes that styles make fights, and that’s also true of basketball games.

Twenty-four hours after Seton Hall and Marquette spent 40 minutes in a clinch, Notre Dame gave the Golden Eagles space, and that allowed Jerel McNeal and Maurice Acker to connect on enough haymakers to land the Golden Eagles in the semifinals with an 89-79 victory on Thursday night in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals.

The first half seemed to go to form for the favored Irish. Notre Dame led by six at the break, out-rebounded Marquette by three and did all that despite Big East Player of the Year Luke Harangody playing just seven minutes after picking up a second foul with 10:35 left and sitting out the remainder of the half.

When a rare Tory Jackson 3-pointer put the Irish up, 44-34, with 18 minutes remaining, Notre Dame looked poised to take the rubber match of the season series and get back in the tournament semifinals for the second straight year.

But a funny — or perhaps disturbing, based on your perspective — thing happened on the way to a breezy victory: Marquette started knocking down shots. Seton Hall’s pressure permitted a lot of trips to the foul line for Marquette on Wednesday, but conceded few open looks. Notre Dame doesn’t play with the same defensive tenacity, and the Golden Eagles grew more comfortable from the perimeter with each passing swish.

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NEW YORK — On the last rebound of the game in which the contest’s result was still in doubt, two bench players determined the outcome.

With 1:30 left in overtime of Pittsburgh’s 76-69 win over Louisville in the Big East Tournament on Thursday, the Cardinals trailed by four. Louisville’s Andre McGee attempted a wide-open 3-pointer that went long. Two of the game’s most important players — both reserves — were in on the rebound. Louisville’s Earl Clark got it, but the Panthers’ Gilbert Brown stripped him and recovered the ball.

Seconds later, Levance Fields got the roll on a tear-dropper that gave Pitt a six-point lead with 1:08 to play, and the Panthers were on their way to eliminating Louisville from its third straight Big East Tournament. And while stars like Fields and Sam Young will grab most of the headlines, reserves like Clark and Brown would form the character of the event.

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There’s just one week left before the Big East Tournament, but so much has not been decided — at the top, bottom and middle of the conference.

We are the champions: Before the season, folks were about split about who they thought the best team in the Big East was. Four months later, and it appears that those two teams will play for the right to call itself the best when Louisville travels to Washington to play Georgetown on Saturday. Both teams are 14-3 in conference and off in this mid-week and therefore have about a week to prepare. Georgetown will have to figure out how it can get an inside game going that will earn it more than the four free throws the Hoyas shot in Louisville a month ago. Louisville will just be trying to cap a tremendous run of excellent basketball. The Cardinals have won nine straight, including a 14-point win over Villanova on Sunday.

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