College Basketball Nation: West Virginia Mountaineers
WVU's new look to be defined by transfers
May, 2, 2012
May 2
12:15
PM ET
By
Eamonn Brennan | ESPN.com
It's no secret: 2011-12 was not West Virginia's best year on the basketball court. That's not the same as calling it a bad year: The Mountaineers still managed to eek out a 9-9 record in the Big East, and they still managed to sneak in to the NCAA tournament before losing to Gonzaga in the first round, and there are plenty of teams that wish they could say the same.
Still, 2012 was not the finest hour in Bob Huggins' tenure at WVU, mostly because his team was often so difficult to watch. Aesthetic value only goes so far, sure, but the Mountaineers were such a poor shooting team, and such a mediocre defensive unit, that their games often came down to a) whether Kevin Jones could carry the load and b) which team rebounded its own misses more frequently. These games were scrums, and they were ugly. Even the most loyal West Virginia fan had to occasionally avert her eyes.
So: What does 2012-13 have in store? The Mountaineers, as you already know, are joining the Big 12. Can Huggy's team compete -- or even contend -- in their new-look league?
If not, it will not be for a lack of talent. Huggins loses Jones and senior guard Daryl "Truck" Bryant, his two leading scorers from last year's campaign, to graduation. The loss of the do-everything Jones -- an adept scorer and dominant offensive rebounder and a four-year stalwart at his position -- will require a particularly difficult adjustment. But despite that loss, Huggins is in many ways reloading. And he has transfers to thank for that.
If West Virginia does indeed plan to compete for the Big 12 title in 2012-13, it may well come down to the play of Aaric Murray, a former La Salle forward, and Juwan Staten, a transfer point guard from Dayton. Both bring tons of talent. At 6-foot-10, Murray is a potential NBA prospect; as a sophomore at La Salle, he grabbed 19.0 percent of opponents' misses and recorded a block on 7.6 percent of available possessions. (He also shot 20-of-57 from 3 that season. There is versatility here, too.) Staten, meanwhile, was one of the nation's best assist men in 2011, his freshman season at Dayton, when his 39.8 percent assist rate ranked him No. 10 in the country. Staten took his fair shot of shots that season (304, to be exact), but his pass-first tendencies nonetheless shone through.
West Virginia is also bringing along a crop of 2012 freshmen -- notably Jabarie Hinds and Gary Browne, but Aaron Brown, Keaton Miles and Kevin Noreen all received solid minutes in their first seasons -- as well as one ESPNU 100 talent in No. 12-ranked power forward Elijah Macon, a Columbus, Ohio native who did his hooping and schooling at Huntington Prep. Big-bodied and ably bearded forward Deniz Kilicli returns, and hopefully he will play "Country Roads" on his guitar at Midnight Madness again. That was awesome.
Still, the key players to watch are Murray and Staten, and Staten may prove to be the most important; he offers as much promise as trepidation. Staten is the kind of facilitative point guard the Mountaineers have desperately lacked in recent seasons, particularly when Bryant was running the show. (Hinds and Browne both recorded assist rates above 20 this past season, but West Virginia's offense was hardly flowing.) If Staten is content to be that kind of player, and Murray and Kilicli and Huggins' other forwards hit the glass with the usual Hugginsian intensity, then West Virginia is almost guaranteed to improve in 2012-13. But if Staten is still mired in some of the things that precipitated his Dayton transfer in the first place -- bad chemistry with teammates, a bad reputation among his coaches, those sort of things -- the Mountaineers are going to struggle early and often on both ends of the floor.
There are many uncertainties for this team, from two bigtime transfers to a batch of freshmen with a year of experience under their belts, to a freshman power forward that may or may not make an immediate impact. Until Huggins gets his players on the floor in the fall, the best West Virginia fans can do is picture it in their mind's eye. Midnight Madness will be a fascinating experience, no doubt (and not just for Kilicli's strumming). But if all goes well, the team WVU fans see in 2012-13 could be much improved, capable -- at least -- of battling in the top half of its new league in its first Big 12 season.
At the very worst, this team should be more entertaining -- or, you know, less difficult to watch. For a squad with this many questions, the Mountaineers may offer some potentially exciting answers.
Still, 2012 was not the finest hour in Bob Huggins' tenure at WVU, mostly because his team was often so difficult to watch. Aesthetic value only goes so far, sure, but the Mountaineers were such a poor shooting team, and such a mediocre defensive unit, that their games often came down to a) whether Kevin Jones could carry the load and b) which team rebounded its own misses more frequently. These games were scrums, and they were ugly. Even the most loyal West Virginia fan had to occasionally avert her eyes.
[+] Enlarge
US PresswireBob Huggins and the Mountaineers enter the 2012-13 season with a whole host of new faces.
US PresswireBob Huggins and the Mountaineers enter the 2012-13 season with a whole host of new faces.If not, it will not be for a lack of talent. Huggins loses Jones and senior guard Daryl "Truck" Bryant, his two leading scorers from last year's campaign, to graduation. The loss of the do-everything Jones -- an adept scorer and dominant offensive rebounder and a four-year stalwart at his position -- will require a particularly difficult adjustment. But despite that loss, Huggins is in many ways reloading. And he has transfers to thank for that.
If West Virginia does indeed plan to compete for the Big 12 title in 2012-13, it may well come down to the play of Aaric Murray, a former La Salle forward, and Juwan Staten, a transfer point guard from Dayton. Both bring tons of talent. At 6-foot-10, Murray is a potential NBA prospect; as a sophomore at La Salle, he grabbed 19.0 percent of opponents' misses and recorded a block on 7.6 percent of available possessions. (He also shot 20-of-57 from 3 that season. There is versatility here, too.) Staten, meanwhile, was one of the nation's best assist men in 2011, his freshman season at Dayton, when his 39.8 percent assist rate ranked him No. 10 in the country. Staten took his fair shot of shots that season (304, to be exact), but his pass-first tendencies nonetheless shone through.
West Virginia is also bringing along a crop of 2012 freshmen -- notably Jabarie Hinds and Gary Browne, but Aaron Brown, Keaton Miles and Kevin Noreen all received solid minutes in their first seasons -- as well as one ESPNU 100 talent in No. 12-ranked power forward Elijah Macon, a Columbus, Ohio native who did his hooping and schooling at Huntington Prep. Big-bodied and ably bearded forward Deniz Kilicli returns, and hopefully he will play "Country Roads" on his guitar at Midnight Madness again. That was awesome.
Still, the key players to watch are Murray and Staten, and Staten may prove to be the most important; he offers as much promise as trepidation. Staten is the kind of facilitative point guard the Mountaineers have desperately lacked in recent seasons, particularly when Bryant was running the show. (Hinds and Browne both recorded assist rates above 20 this past season, but West Virginia's offense was hardly flowing.) If Staten is content to be that kind of player, and Murray and Kilicli and Huggins' other forwards hit the glass with the usual Hugginsian intensity, then West Virginia is almost guaranteed to improve in 2012-13. But if Staten is still mired in some of the things that precipitated his Dayton transfer in the first place -- bad chemistry with teammates, a bad reputation among his coaches, those sort of things -- the Mountaineers are going to struggle early and often on both ends of the floor.
There are many uncertainties for this team, from two bigtime transfers to a batch of freshmen with a year of experience under their belts, to a freshman power forward that may or may not make an immediate impact. Until Huggins gets his players on the floor in the fall, the best West Virginia fans can do is picture it in their mind's eye. Midnight Madness will be a fascinating experience, no doubt (and not just for Kilicli's strumming). But if all goes well, the team WVU fans see in 2012-13 could be much improved, capable -- at least -- of battling in the top half of its new league in its first Big 12 season.
At the very worst, this team should be more entertaining -- or, you know, less difficult to watch. For a squad with this many questions, the Mountaineers may offer some potentially exciting answers.
Jimmy Dykes on Gonzaga rolling to a 77-54 victory over West Virginia.
Zags find tourney cure for season's woes
March, 15, 2012
Mar 15
10:30
PM ET
By
Dana O'Neil | ESPN.com
PITTSBURGH -- The month of March can be like a great big tub of aloe, here to cure all that ails you, make you forget everything that went wrong in the regular season.
And surely a lot went wrong for Gonzaga this season, or at least by the Zags’ incredibly high standards.
For the first time since 1997, Gonzaga won neither the West Coast Conference regular-season nor tournament titles. Worse, the Zags ceded both to rival Saint Mary’s.
It was not an entirely illogical result, considering this is a Gonzaga team heavily dependent on freshmen at key spots, but a tough pill to swallow nevertheless.
Two weeks later, and suddenly those things seem like ancient history.
Gonzaga, the original mid-major gone big-time, rolled over home favorite West Virginia 77-54, putting together arguably its most complete game of the season.
“We played pretty well against BYU in the [WCC] tournament, too, but yeah, this might have been our best,’’ coach Mark Few said.
The Zags flew 2,000 miles to play this game, compared to the 75-mile bus ride the Mountaineers took from Morgantown.
Somehow West Virginia looked jet-lagged.
The Mountaineers were never in it, trailing by 18 at the break and then merely playing out the clock from there, handing coach Bob Huggins his worst loss in NCAA tournament play since West Virginia's 21-point defeat to Duke in the Final Four in 2010.
Gonzaga did what it wanted on offense, shooting at 56 percent from the floor, and locked down WVU on the other end. Never a good shooting team, the Mountaineers were positively dreadful Thursday, clanking to the tune of 32 percent from the floor and a woeful 3-of-17 from the arc.
“The truth of the matter is, this is really a microcosm of our season,’’ Huggins said. “This is the worst defensive team I’ve had in 30 years. We don’t get the help, we don’t get the loose balls, we don’t do the things we’ve done for years and years and years. A lot of it is because we’re so inept offensively. They get breakouts. We throw the ball around, throw the ball to them. That adds to it.’’
Robert Sacre came to Pittsburgh hoping he would finally get a taste of some Big East beefcake basketball. It never really happened. The Zags doubled Kevin Jones every time he touched the ball and Jones, who does a lot of his damage on the offensive glass, was fairly innocuous. He scored 13 but had just 4 rebounds and, more, only 2 offensive rebounds, as the Zags were able to match the Mountaineers’ effort on the glass, something Few had emphasized all week.
“I just want to go out with a bang,’’ Sacre said. “Coach always says, ‘Play like Rob, have a lot of energy, have passion, have fun.' That’s what I’m trying to do. That’s what the results are.’’
He’ll have another chance on Saturday, against either Ohio State or Loyola, and perhaps a little more of a soothing balm, too.
Rapid Reaction: Gonzaga 77, W. Virginia 54
March, 15, 2012
Mar 15
9:31
PM ET
By
Dana O'Neil | ESPN.com
PITTSBURGH -- Quick thoughts on Gonzaga's 77-54 victory over West Virginia on Thursday in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Overview: West Virginia traveled 75 miles for its second-round NCAA tournament game, Gonzaga 2,000. That was about right for the cruising speed for the teams, too.
While Gonzaga zipped, zigged and zagged, the Mountaineers looked like they were anchored to the court.
The Zags ate West Virginia up offensively, shooting 56 percent from the floor and a blistering 53 from behind the arc. They were also smothering defensively, forcing WVU out past the arc, from where the Mountaineers could hit only 3-of-17.
It was nothing less than a clinic from a team that, like West Virginia, is young, but is blessed with the one thing the Mountaineers have lacked all season -- decent shooting.
Senior forward Kevin Jones scored only 13 points -- and that’s not going to win many games for WVU.
Turning point: Approximately 16 seconds in. The Mountaineers led 2-0 ... and that was about the end of the highlights for West Virginia. By the end of the half, Gonzaga owned a 40-22 margin, completely dominating and outplaying the Mountaineers. It didn’t get better after that.
Key player: Robert Sacre came to Pittsburgh salivating at the chance to play some East Coast power ball. The Gonzaga forward didn’t really get that game, but he was important nonetheless, contributing 14 points and six rebounds. He got the outside part of the inside-outside compliment from Kevin Pangos (13) and Gary Bell Jr. (14).
Miscellaneous: The 23-point loss marked the worst for West Virginia coach Bob Huggins since a 21-point defeat to Duke in the Final Four in 2010, and nearly matched the 24-point beating Illinois handed his Cincinnati team in 2004. … This is the third year in a row Gonzaga has won its opening game in the NCAA tournament. ... These are two of the younger teams in the country. Gonzaga has three freshmen and four sophomores on its roster; West Virginia has seven freshmen.
Next game: Gonzaga faces No. 2 seed Ohio State, setting up a couple of terrific battles Saturday — between Pangos and Aaron Craft at the point and Sacre, who has been begging for more physical games, against Jared Sullinger.
Overview: West Virginia traveled 75 miles for its second-round NCAA tournament game, Gonzaga 2,000. That was about right for the cruising speed for the teams, too.
While Gonzaga zipped, zigged and zagged, the Mountaineers looked like they were anchored to the court.
The Zags ate West Virginia up offensively, shooting 56 percent from the floor and a blistering 53 from behind the arc. They were also smothering defensively, forcing WVU out past the arc, from where the Mountaineers could hit only 3-of-17.
It was nothing less than a clinic from a team that, like West Virginia, is young, but is blessed with the one thing the Mountaineers have lacked all season -- decent shooting.
Senior forward Kevin Jones scored only 13 points -- and that’s not going to win many games for WVU.
Turning point: Approximately 16 seconds in. The Mountaineers led 2-0 ... and that was about the end of the highlights for West Virginia. By the end of the half, Gonzaga owned a 40-22 margin, completely dominating and outplaying the Mountaineers. It didn’t get better after that.
Key player: Robert Sacre came to Pittsburgh salivating at the chance to play some East Coast power ball. The Gonzaga forward didn’t really get that game, but he was important nonetheless, contributing 14 points and six rebounds. He got the outside part of the inside-outside compliment from Kevin Pangos (13) and Gary Bell Jr. (14).
Miscellaneous: The 23-point loss marked the worst for West Virginia coach Bob Huggins since a 21-point defeat to Duke in the Final Four in 2010, and nearly matched the 24-point beating Illinois handed his Cincinnati team in 2004. … This is the third year in a row Gonzaga has won its opening game in the NCAA tournament. ... These are two of the younger teams in the country. Gonzaga has three freshmen and four sophomores on its roster; West Virginia has seven freshmen.
Next game: Gonzaga faces No. 2 seed Ohio State, setting up a couple of terrific battles Saturday — between Pangos and Aaron Craft at the point and Sacre, who has been begging for more physical games, against Jared Sullinger.
Overview: Two down, three to go.
Connecticut, which trailed West Virginia for almost the entire second half, by as many as 11, staged a furious rally in the final five minutes to send the game into overtime, then pulled out the win in the extra period. Another magical Madison Square Garden moment for the Huskies, who are now two-fifths of the way to repeating their incredible five-wins-in-five-days performance in the Big East tournament last year.
UConn (20-12, 8-10 Big East) also likely locked up an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament with the victory.
For West Virginia (19-13, 9-9 Big East), it's a bitter defeat -- and its final game as a member of the Big East conference. The Mountaineers will be members of the Big 12 next season. For now, they'll have to wait and see if their name is called on Selection Sunday.
Turning point: After a tight first 20 minutes, West Virginia took control of the game early in the second half. UConn trailed 61-52 with 4:58 remaining, and West Virginia seemed firmly in control -- but then Shabazz Napier took over. Doing his best Kemba Walker impression, Napier scored nine straight points for the Huskies down the stretch, including back-to-back steals that led to layups, the second of which tied the game at 63. We ended up in overtime, tied at 65.
Napier fouled out with 2:35 left in OT, but his teammates picked up -- Jeremy Lamb in particular. Lamb hit the biggest shot of the game, a 3-pointer off a curl screen to break a 67-all tie with 1:05 left. The Huskies shut out the Mountaineers the rest of the way.
Key player: Napier was brilliant in the second half. After scoring just four points in the first 20 minutes and shooting just 1-for-7 from the field, he erupted for 20 points in the second half and finished with a game-high 26, to go along with six assists and four rebounds.
Lamb added 22 points, 12 in the first half. He disappeared for a while in the second half, but then made the huge shot in OT.
For West Virginia, Kevin Jones -- the conference's leading scorer and rebounder this season -- had one more outstanding Big East game, with 25 points and 10 rebounds.
Miscellaneous: UConn is going to have to rebound better to advance any further in this tournament. The Mountaineers killed the Huskies on the offensive glass, 26-8, leading to 25 second-chance points. ... UConn also struggled from the foul line for the second straight game, making just 14-of-22. Ryan Boatright missed three of four in the final minute of OT, but finally got one down to make it a two-possession game.
What's next: UConn will play No. 1 seed Syracuse in a wonderful Big East quarterfinal matchup, Thursday at noon. West Virginia goes home and faces a few days of uncertainty leading up to Selection Sunday.
1. Atlantic 10 commissioner Bernadette McGlade said Temple needs to honor its one-year exit agreement with the league, just like the Big East has demanded its teams must stay to fulfill their commitments (although the conference a $20 million buyout from West Virginia). McGlade said Temple would owe one million dollars for leaving with a year's notice, and two million if departing before two. Of course, Temple could pulls its football program out of the MAC and keep basketball and others out of the A-10 for a year. The Big East is more desperate for a football team for the fall of 2012 than it is for hoops.
2. This is West Virginia's final Big East tournament. Syracuse and Pitt are probably playing in one more in 2013. Memphis, UCF, Houston, SMU and who knows, maybe Temple, will be in the Big East tournament in 2014. “It sickens me to be quite honest," said Hall of Fame coach and former Georgetown coach John Thompson Jr. “It’s not healthy to lose the rivalries. It’s not what the philosophy of this league was formed.’’
3. Marquette associate coach Tony Benford will be in play for the Southern Illinois coaching job and could also be at SMU if that job opens. Kentucky assistant Orlando Antigua will likely be on the list at Rhode Island. Late Monday, the game saw one of the classiest coaches retire when Charlie Coles decided to step down from Miami of Ohio.
2. This is West Virginia's final Big East tournament. Syracuse and Pitt are probably playing in one more in 2013. Memphis, UCF, Houston, SMU and who knows, maybe Temple, will be in the Big East tournament in 2014. “It sickens me to be quite honest," said Hall of Fame coach and former Georgetown coach John Thompson Jr. “It’s not healthy to lose the rivalries. It’s not what the philosophy of this league was formed.’’
3. Marquette associate coach Tony Benford will be in play for the Southern Illinois coaching job and could also be at SMU if that job opens. Kentucky assistant Orlando Antigua will likely be on the list at Rhode Island. Late Monday, the game saw one of the classiest coaches retire when Charlie Coles decided to step down from Miami of Ohio.
What we learned from Saturday afternoon
March, 3, 2012
Mar 3
8:24
PM ET
By
Eamonn Brennan | ESPN.com
Believe it or not, a certain massive matchup in Durham, N.C., isn't the only college hoops game on the schedule today. Hard to believe, I know, but it's true.
Here's a look at much of the action -- bubble and otherwise -- that served as the appetizer to tonight's main course. Be sure to check back later this evening for our writers' reactions and analysis from across the country.
No. 7 Marquette 83, No. 12 Georgetown 69: When March calms down, and the offseason finishes out its usual assortment of draft decisions, coaching intrigue and off-campus arrests (and everything else), I'm going to sit down one week and calculate college hoops winning percentages on senior night. With the exception of Northwestern (which lost in heartbreaking fashion Wednesday), it felt like nearly every team in the country won its final home game of the season this week. A lot of that is just good, old-fashioned home-court advantage, and some of it is skill and so forth, but when you strip all that away, I'm still going to guess pretty much every college hoops team in the country sees a massive bounce in its winning in the final home game of the season. Quantifying emotion is never easy. This feels like a chance.
In any case, Marquette followed this (presumably real, potentially imagined) trend Saturday, easily handling a Georgetown team that was itself coming off a dominant performance in its final home game of the season, a 59-41 victory over Notre Dame. In doing so, the Golden Eagles extended their Big East record to 14-4 and ensured the No. 2 seed in the Big East tournament next week. Meanwhile, Jae Crowder made one last-ditch pitch for Big East player of the year: He scored 26 points and grabbed 14 rebounds on 8-of-15 from the field and 10-of-12 from the free throw line. (Crowder missed all five 3-point attempts, a portion of his game that he's really improved this season. When your center can shoot 37 percent from 3-point range, you've got a very difficult team to guard.)
Can Crowder win the award? Because he should. With all due respect to Darius Johnson-Odom and like four or five different Syracuse players, Crowder's mix of offensive efficiency (offensive rating: 122.9; including 61 percent from inside the arc, a low turnover rate, and the aforementioned perimeter solidity), rebounding and defense (he's averaging 2.3 steals and 1.0 blocks per game) make him, to me, the most complete, most important player in the conference.
No. 9 Murray State 54, Tennessee State 52 (Ohio Valley Championship): With six minutes left in the OVC title game, bubble teams across the country were no doubt finding it difficult to establish regulated breathing patterns. Tennessee State was up 48-43, the Racers were struggling to find stops against the dish-and-kick action of the Tigers' 1-4 low sets, and even worse, Isaiah Canaan, Murray State's do-it-all star, was battling through an off night. A two-bid OVC -- and a suddenly shrunken bubble -- were very real possibilities.
But Murray State locked in on defense, stacking great possession after great possession, cutting the Tigers off and preventing easy shots in the paint, and eventually came back to seal the win. The final go-ahead basket was a matter of immediate controversy at the broadcast table; our own Fran Fraschilla was convinced Murray State guard Jewuan Long charged on his game-winning basket. The call was close, no question. But all due respect to Fran, who is way better than this than I am, I disagree that it should have been a charge. A few things here. Long shot the ball before contact was initiated; the defender was still slightly sliding under the move, rather than entirely in front of it; and, most importantly, it was the penultimate play of a one-possession game with the NCAA tournament on the line. The ref needs to swallow his whistle there. And, in general, college coaches and players -- frankly, this applies to the NBA, too -- need to stop coaching defense like this! It's bad for the sport. There are plenty of ways to defend a driving player without fouling or attempt to draw a foul. Choose one. Don't run to a spot and hope the ref gives you the benefit of a 50-50 call, especially when your season is on the line. In short: Play defense.
Maybe that's the pickup player in me coming out; I would have little sympathy even if Long committed a blatant charge. But it wasn't. The no-call couldn't have been more appropriate. And every bubble team in the country can breathe just a little bit easier as a result.
Illinois State 65, No. 14 Wichita State 64: On second thought, bubble teams, you can go back to freaking out now. Why? Because Arch Madness has yielded its first truly mad result of the tournament. Wichita State is the Missouri Valley's best team and No. 1 overall seed, not to mention everyone's pick to be this year's mid-major tournament darling. But that didn't stop the Redbirds -- thanks to Tyler Brown's two clutch free throws and two misses in the last six seconds from WSU's Toure' Murry and Garrett Stutz -- from shocking the Shockers all the same. (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)
Wichita State doesn't have much to worry about in the way of its NCAA tournament seed, of course. But every team along the bubble line, including many of those mentioned below, should be terrified. If Creighton suffers the same fate at any point this weekend, the Missouri Valley will send three teams to the NCAA tournament and steal one bid from a bubble that is destined to shrink even further down the stretch.
Could that third team be Illinois State? Why not? When you beat Wichita State on a neutral court, you deserve the benefit of the doubt.
No. 2 Syracuse 58, No. 18 Louisville 49: This was always an uphill battle for Louisville for one obvious reason: The Cardinals can't score. Louisville can defend. It can rebound. It can get stops when it needs them. But when you have the Big East's 11th-best offense on a per-possession basis, when your effective field-goal percentage ranks outside the nation's top 200 teams, when you turn the ball over on 21.8 percent of your possessions (national rank: No. 241) and your task is to break down Syracuse's smothering 2-3 defense in the Carrier Dome, well, good luck. Syracuse played its typically potent brand of extended defense, forcing Louisville a downright awful 2-of-23 mark from beyond the arc, and that's pretty much your game right there.
It's going to be interesting to see how Rick Pitino tries to adjust this team as he heads toward the NCAA tournament. A few weeks ago, Pitino told ESPN Radio's Scott Van Pelt that he liked to speed the game up and take more risks in the tournament; in his experience, too many coaches slow down in the tournament, fearing disorganization and disarray. This might be his only course of action in March. The Cardinals can't find any offense, but they can press and trap and slap and claw and hope to get easy buckets from turnovers and bad shots in transition. At this point, with this anemic, predictable offense (prediction: Peyton Siva won't see a defense guard him over the top on another ball screen all season), does Pitino have any other choice?
Variously Questionable Bubble Losses
West Virginia 50, South Florida 44: The Mountaineers desperately needed this win. Before this week's victory over DePaul, WVU had lost seven of its previous nine games and seen its once-certain at-large tournament bid -- WVU was once a No. 5 seed in Joe Lunardi's bracket; now it's a No. 12 -- become an entirely precarious matter. This win obviously helps, and not just because it was a win: It also put a ding on one of WVU's potential bubble rivals, South Florida, which has surged into the bubble conversation in recent weeks thanks to a gaudy Big East record and consecutive victories over Cincinnati and Louisville. A win Saturday might have put the Bulls on the right side of the bubble in official fashion. As it is, their profile still looks much better than it used to, but with a 5-10 road record and a 2-8 mark against the RPI top 50, some positive results in the Big East tournament may well be necessary.
UCLA 75, Washington 69: First things first: This was a really nice win for UCLA. It hasn't been the easiest week for the Bruins (that's a candidate for understatement of the year), but with back-to-back good wins (a blowout of Washington State and this plucky victory over the league's standings leader) at least they finished on a positive note. As for Washington, the loss might well have cost the Huskies the outright Pac-12 title. Cal still needs to win get a likely but hardly guaranteed win at Stanford, but either way, the Huskies' argument -- that an outright regular-season conference title in a high-major, albeit really bad, conference should guarantee a spot in the NCAA tournament -- looks even more specious now. Washington, like the rest of this league, has nothing in the way of nonconference results to point to as proof that it is considerably better than the RPI's impression of the Pac-12 as the 10th-best league in the country. It will be fascinating to see how the committee treats UW, and the Pac-12 as a whole, but if I'm the Huskies I'm planning on making a very deep run through the Pac-12 tournament, just to be safe.
Marshall 79, Southern Miss 75: Will a loss at Marshall damage Southern Miss's bubble chances? Doubtful. Marshall is a quality team -- a deep fringe bubble candidate in its own right -- and a four-point loss in the Herd's building isn't, or shouldn't, be the kind of thing that damages a team's bubble chances. What's more, the Golden Eagles still own an RPI within the top 20. In the past 16 years, no team with an RPI of 20 higher has ever missed the tournament. (The closest was 2005-06 Missouri State, which didn't have nearly as strong a profile as this team.) They should be fine.
Maintenance-Minded Bubble Wins
Xavier 72, Charlotte 63: Xavier's final home win of the season wasn't what the Musketeers would have planned heading into the season. To wit, from the AP: "It was a bittersweet day for Xavier, which had grown accustomed to ending its final home game with a spray of confetti and a few celebratory snips of the net. The Musketeers' streak of five straight A-10 regular-season titles was snapped this season." That dream was over weeks ago. Xavier has bigger fish to slice now. The Musketeers are as close to the bubble as you can be (Lunardi's most recent bracket has them as the first team outside the field). A win won't necessarily change that, but a loss would have been disastrous, and Xavier is now in at least slightly better position as it heads into A-10 postseason play.
Northwestern 70, Iowa 66: It was very easy to imagine Northwestern -- which missed marquee wins (Michigan, Ohio State) in soul-crushing fashion twice in the past two weeks -- losing at Iowa. The Hawkeyes beat Wisconsin and Indiana at home in recent weeks, Northwestern would no doubt be feeling the historic tournament pressure, and so on. But this was an impressive victory, or at least as impressive as a victory over Iowa can ever be. This is a little like Xavier's win: It doesn't provide a bubble bump, but it does prevent a potentially disastrous move in the wrong direction at the worst possible time of the season. Is Northwestern in right now? I'd guess yes. But it's hardly a done deal. Like nearly everyone else on the bubble, the only way for Bill Carmody's team to enter Selection Sunday with any measure of confidence is to play well in next week's conference tournament. That much is clear.
Miami 77, Boston College 56: Same situation here: A loss would have been a dream-killer. A win doesn't move the needle. Miami basically has two tourney-worthy qualities on its profile: A win at Duke (huge) and a home win over Florida State (slightly less huge, but still important). But other than that, there's not much there. Can the Hurricanes knock off one of this league's top four teams -- especially Duke or UNC -- on a neutral floor next week? That might be the baseline requirement going forward.
Connecticut 74, Pittsburgh 65: The Huskies have spent much of the past three weeks looking downright determined to overcome their computer numbers (a top-five overall strength of schedule and a top-20 nonconference figure) and somehow, some way, miss the tournament. This week's loss to Providence was an apparent punctuation mark on a pretty much horrible Big East season, or at least horrible relative to this team's elite talent. After this win, though, it looks like UConn will -- just barely -- hold on to a spot above the bubble fray.
Here's a look at much of the action -- bubble and otherwise -- that served as the appetizer to tonight's main course. Be sure to check back later this evening for our writers' reactions and analysis from across the country.
No. 7 Marquette 83, No. 12 Georgetown 69: When March calms down, and the offseason finishes out its usual assortment of draft decisions, coaching intrigue and off-campus arrests (and everything else), I'm going to sit down one week and calculate college hoops winning percentages on senior night. With the exception of Northwestern (which lost in heartbreaking fashion Wednesday), it felt like nearly every team in the country won its final home game of the season this week. A lot of that is just good, old-fashioned home-court advantage, and some of it is skill and so forth, but when you strip all that away, I'm still going to guess pretty much every college hoops team in the country sees a massive bounce in its winning in the final home game of the season. Quantifying emotion is never easy. This feels like a chance.
In any case, Marquette followed this (presumably real, potentially imagined) trend Saturday, easily handling a Georgetown team that was itself coming off a dominant performance in its final home game of the season, a 59-41 victory over Notre Dame. In doing so, the Golden Eagles extended their Big East record to 14-4 and ensured the No. 2 seed in the Big East tournament next week. Meanwhile, Jae Crowder made one last-ditch pitch for Big East player of the year: He scored 26 points and grabbed 14 rebounds on 8-of-15 from the field and 10-of-12 from the free throw line. (Crowder missed all five 3-point attempts, a portion of his game that he's really improved this season. When your center can shoot 37 percent from 3-point range, you've got a very difficult team to guard.)
Can Crowder win the award? Because he should. With all due respect to Darius Johnson-Odom and like four or five different Syracuse players, Crowder's mix of offensive efficiency (offensive rating: 122.9; including 61 percent from inside the arc, a low turnover rate, and the aforementioned perimeter solidity), rebounding and defense (he's averaging 2.3 steals and 1.0 blocks per game) make him, to me, the most complete, most important player in the conference.
No. 9 Murray State 54, Tennessee State 52 (Ohio Valley Championship): With six minutes left in the OVC title game, bubble teams across the country were no doubt finding it difficult to establish regulated breathing patterns. Tennessee State was up 48-43, the Racers were struggling to find stops against the dish-and-kick action of the Tigers' 1-4 low sets, and even worse, Isaiah Canaan, Murray State's do-it-all star, was battling through an off night. A two-bid OVC -- and a suddenly shrunken bubble -- were very real possibilities.
But Murray State locked in on defense, stacking great possession after great possession, cutting the Tigers off and preventing easy shots in the paint, and eventually came back to seal the win. The final go-ahead basket was a matter of immediate controversy at the broadcast table; our own Fran Fraschilla was convinced Murray State guard Jewuan Long charged on his game-winning basket. The call was close, no question. But all due respect to Fran, who is way better than this than I am, I disagree that it should have been a charge. A few things here. Long shot the ball before contact was initiated; the defender was still slightly sliding under the move, rather than entirely in front of it; and, most importantly, it was the penultimate play of a one-possession game with the NCAA tournament on the line. The ref needs to swallow his whistle there. And, in general, college coaches and players -- frankly, this applies to the NBA, too -- need to stop coaching defense like this! It's bad for the sport. There are plenty of ways to defend a driving player without fouling or attempt to draw a foul. Choose one. Don't run to a spot and hope the ref gives you the benefit of a 50-50 call, especially when your season is on the line. In short: Play defense.
Maybe that's the pickup player in me coming out; I would have little sympathy even if Long committed a blatant charge. But it wasn't. The no-call couldn't have been more appropriate. And every bubble team in the country can breathe just a little bit easier as a result.
Illinois State 65, No. 14 Wichita State 64: On second thought, bubble teams, you can go back to freaking out now. Why? Because Arch Madness has yielded its first truly mad result of the tournament. Wichita State is the Missouri Valley's best team and No. 1 overall seed, not to mention everyone's pick to be this year's mid-major tournament darling. But that didn't stop the Redbirds -- thanks to Tyler Brown's two clutch free throws and two misses in the last six seconds from WSU's Toure' Murry and Garrett Stutz -- from shocking the Shockers all the same. (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)
Wichita State doesn't have much to worry about in the way of its NCAA tournament seed, of course. But every team along the bubble line, including many of those mentioned below, should be terrified. If Creighton suffers the same fate at any point this weekend, the Missouri Valley will send three teams to the NCAA tournament and steal one bid from a bubble that is destined to shrink even further down the stretch.
Could that third team be Illinois State? Why not? When you beat Wichita State on a neutral court, you deserve the benefit of the doubt.
No. 2 Syracuse 58, No. 18 Louisville 49: This was always an uphill battle for Louisville for one obvious reason: The Cardinals can't score. Louisville can defend. It can rebound. It can get stops when it needs them. But when you have the Big East's 11th-best offense on a per-possession basis, when your effective field-goal percentage ranks outside the nation's top 200 teams, when you turn the ball over on 21.8 percent of your possessions (national rank: No. 241) and your task is to break down Syracuse's smothering 2-3 defense in the Carrier Dome, well, good luck. Syracuse played its typically potent brand of extended defense, forcing Louisville a downright awful 2-of-23 mark from beyond the arc, and that's pretty much your game right there.
It's going to be interesting to see how Rick Pitino tries to adjust this team as he heads toward the NCAA tournament. A few weeks ago, Pitino told ESPN Radio's Scott Van Pelt that he liked to speed the game up and take more risks in the tournament; in his experience, too many coaches slow down in the tournament, fearing disorganization and disarray. This might be his only course of action in March. The Cardinals can't find any offense, but they can press and trap and slap and claw and hope to get easy buckets from turnovers and bad shots in transition. At this point, with this anemic, predictable offense (prediction: Peyton Siva won't see a defense guard him over the top on another ball screen all season), does Pitino have any other choice?
Variously Questionable Bubble Losses
West Virginia 50, South Florida 44: The Mountaineers desperately needed this win. Before this week's victory over DePaul, WVU had lost seven of its previous nine games and seen its once-certain at-large tournament bid -- WVU was once a No. 5 seed in Joe Lunardi's bracket; now it's a No. 12 -- become an entirely precarious matter. This win obviously helps, and not just because it was a win: It also put a ding on one of WVU's potential bubble rivals, South Florida, which has surged into the bubble conversation in recent weeks thanks to a gaudy Big East record and consecutive victories over Cincinnati and Louisville. A win Saturday might have put the Bulls on the right side of the bubble in official fashion. As it is, their profile still looks much better than it used to, but with a 5-10 road record and a 2-8 mark against the RPI top 50, some positive results in the Big East tournament may well be necessary.
UCLA 75, Washington 69: First things first: This was a really nice win for UCLA. It hasn't been the easiest week for the Bruins (that's a candidate for understatement of the year), but with back-to-back good wins (a blowout of Washington State and this plucky victory over the league's standings leader) at least they finished on a positive note. As for Washington, the loss might well have cost the Huskies the outright Pac-12 title. Cal still needs to win get a likely but hardly guaranteed win at Stanford, but either way, the Huskies' argument -- that an outright regular-season conference title in a high-major, albeit really bad, conference should guarantee a spot in the NCAA tournament -- looks even more specious now. Washington, like the rest of this league, has nothing in the way of nonconference results to point to as proof that it is considerably better than the RPI's impression of the Pac-12 as the 10th-best league in the country. It will be fascinating to see how the committee treats UW, and the Pac-12 as a whole, but if I'm the Huskies I'm planning on making a very deep run through the Pac-12 tournament, just to be safe.
Marshall 79, Southern Miss 75: Will a loss at Marshall damage Southern Miss's bubble chances? Doubtful. Marshall is a quality team -- a deep fringe bubble candidate in its own right -- and a four-point loss in the Herd's building isn't, or shouldn't, be the kind of thing that damages a team's bubble chances. What's more, the Golden Eagles still own an RPI within the top 20. In the past 16 years, no team with an RPI of 20 higher has ever missed the tournament. (The closest was 2005-06 Missouri State, which didn't have nearly as strong a profile as this team.) They should be fine.
Maintenance-Minded Bubble Wins
Xavier 72, Charlotte 63: Xavier's final home win of the season wasn't what the Musketeers would have planned heading into the season. To wit, from the AP: "It was a bittersweet day for Xavier, which had grown accustomed to ending its final home game with a spray of confetti and a few celebratory snips of the net. The Musketeers' streak of five straight A-10 regular-season titles was snapped this season." That dream was over weeks ago. Xavier has bigger fish to slice now. The Musketeers are as close to the bubble as you can be (Lunardi's most recent bracket has them as the first team outside the field). A win won't necessarily change that, but a loss would have been disastrous, and Xavier is now in at least slightly better position as it heads into A-10 postseason play.
Northwestern 70, Iowa 66: It was very easy to imagine Northwestern -- which missed marquee wins (Michigan, Ohio State) in soul-crushing fashion twice in the past two weeks -- losing at Iowa. The Hawkeyes beat Wisconsin and Indiana at home in recent weeks, Northwestern would no doubt be feeling the historic tournament pressure, and so on. But this was an impressive victory, or at least as impressive as a victory over Iowa can ever be. This is a little like Xavier's win: It doesn't provide a bubble bump, but it does prevent a potentially disastrous move in the wrong direction at the worst possible time of the season. Is Northwestern in right now? I'd guess yes. But it's hardly a done deal. Like nearly everyone else on the bubble, the only way for Bill Carmody's team to enter Selection Sunday with any measure of confidence is to play well in next week's conference tournament. That much is clear.
Miami 77, Boston College 56: Same situation here: A loss would have been a dream-killer. A win doesn't move the needle. Miami basically has two tourney-worthy qualities on its profile: A win at Duke (huge) and a home win over Florida State (slightly less huge, but still important). But other than that, there's not much there. Can the Hurricanes knock off one of this league's top four teams -- especially Duke or UNC -- on a neutral floor next week? That might be the baseline requirement going forward.
Connecticut 74, Pittsburgh 65: The Huskies have spent much of the past three weeks looking downright determined to overcome their computer numbers (a top-five overall strength of schedule and a top-20 nonconference figure) and somehow, some way, miss the tournament. This week's loss to Providence was an apparent punctuation mark on a pretty much horrible Big East season, or at least horrible relative to this team's elite talent. After this win, though, it looks like UConn will -- just barely -- hold on to a spot above the bubble fray.
Editor’s note: Eamonn Brennan breaks down North Carolina-Duke in today’s Weekend Watch. Andy Katz offers a dozen more games to keep an eye on this weekend.
Saturday
West Virginia at South Florida (Noon ET, ESPN3): Tell me again why West Virginia is a lock for the NCAA tournament? The Mountaineers are sliding toward the Big East tournament, losing seven of their past 10 games. Meanwhile, South Florida has won seven of nine and picked up its most important victory of the season by beating Louisville at the KFC Yum! Center on Wednesday. Winning 12 in the Big East didn’t put the Bulls in by itself, but which school got the Bulls to 12 probably did the trick.
Georgetown at Marquette (2 ET, ESPN3): Georgetown humbled Notre Dame and beat down Villanova in its final two home games. The Hoyas can draw even with Marquette in second place with a win in Milwaukee. The Golden Eagles should be good to go at home, but which squad will show? Marquette looked like an Elite Eight team in last week's second-half comeback at West Virginia. But its performance at Cincinnati on Wednesday was more worthy of a first-round exit. Regardless, this could be a preview of a Big East tourney semifinal.
Ohio Valley title game (2 ET, ESPN2): The Ohio Valley could be the first bid thief of Championship Week. Murray State enters the OVC tournament with one loss and is playing for a high NCAA seed. Coach Steve Prohm is hopeful that an OVC win will equate to a top-four seed to protect the Racers. Putting Murray in Nashville might not be as much of a reach if it wins.
Washington at UCLA (2 ET, CBS): The Huskies have emerged as the class of the Pac-12. UCLA is trying to ensure that it still has class. The Bruins need some sort of momentum going into the Pac-12 tournament in Los Angeles. Washington has a chance to improve its NCAA seeding with a strong performance in L.A. and then next week at the Staples Center.
Louisville at Syracuse (4 ET, CBS): The Orange are the Big East No. 1 seed and a lock for a No. 1 NCAA seed. The question in this game is whether Louisville can find its offensive flow after a disheartening performance against South Florida. The Cardinals won’t get healthy at Syracuse but need to find an offensive identity before the Big East tournament.
Baylor at Iowa State (7 ET, ESPN3): Iowa State had Missouri on the ropes in Columbia earlier in the week; Baylor is finally starting to find its mojo at the right time of the season. Forgive the Bears if they drop this game in Ames — this is much more about Iowa State. The Cyclones are going to make the NCAA tournament and could be a spoiler in the Big 12 tourney. Don’t dismiss this team's chances stealing the Big 12 tournament.
Yale at Penn (7 ET): Penn has to sweep Brown and Yale to set up a possible showdown with Princeton that could hand the Ivy League title to Harvard with a Quakers loss (assuming Harvard wins at Columbia and Cornell) or set up a possible playoff game with the Crimson for the Ivy automatic bid.
Texas at Kansas (9 ET, ESPN): Texas passes a number of eye tests — except that the Longhorns haven’t taken down one of the Big 12's big three this season in Kansas, Missouri and Baylor. The Longhorns probably won’t get this one, but the game might be more about their ability to be competitive going into the Big 12 tournament.
Sunday
Kentucky at Florida (Noon ET, CBS): Kentucky is hoping to lock up an undefeated SEC season and ensure itself the No. 1 overall seed ahead of Syracuse. The Gators, meanwhile, have been a bit of an enigma. Florida needs some momentum going into the SEC tournament. The Gators will need to make 3s and Patric Young must stay on the court to be an effective post player.
Missouri Valley title game (2 ET, CBS): The OVC is the first bid thief possibility. Sunday’s MVC title game could be the second of the weekend. If Creighton and Wichita State are in this game, there isn’t a problem. But if a third team sneaks in there and wins, suddenly the MVC will get three bids. If it’s a Creighton-Wichita final Sunday, expect a great atmosphere and a highly competitive affair yet again.
Ohio State at Michigan State (4 ET, CBS): The Spartans are vying to win the Big Ten title outright, something that seemed like a bit of a reach when they started 0-2 and then Ohio State destroyed Duke. But the Spartans’ Feb. 11 victory at Ohio State might go down as one of the most significant in a conference this season. It shifted the power and put the Spartans in position possibly to get a No. 1 seed. Look for the Spartans to win on Draymond Green’s senior night, capping off a great career that should end with him grabbing a Big Ten player-of-the-year trophy over Jared Sullinger.
Purdue at Indiana (6 ET, BTN): The Hoosiers have been one of the best home-court teams in the country. But they rocked the Boilermakers in Mackey Arena by 17. Purdue doesn’t forget. This is a great chance for payback by Purdue, which has been on a high of late. These two teams are both going to be in the NCAA tournament, with legit chances to win a game.
Saturday
West Virginia at South Florida (Noon ET, ESPN3): Tell me again why West Virginia is a lock for the NCAA tournament? The Mountaineers are sliding toward the Big East tournament, losing seven of their past 10 games. Meanwhile, South Florida has won seven of nine and picked up its most important victory of the season by beating Louisville at the KFC Yum! Center on Wednesday. Winning 12 in the Big East didn’t put the Bulls in by itself, but which school got the Bulls to 12 probably did the trick.
Georgetown at Marquette (2 ET, ESPN3): Georgetown humbled Notre Dame and beat down Villanova in its final two home games. The Hoyas can draw even with Marquette in second place with a win in Milwaukee. The Golden Eagles should be good to go at home, but which squad will show? Marquette looked like an Elite Eight team in last week's second-half comeback at West Virginia. But its performance at Cincinnati on Wednesday was more worthy of a first-round exit. Regardless, this could be a preview of a Big East tourney semifinal.
Ohio Valley title game (2 ET, ESPN2): The Ohio Valley could be the first bid thief of Championship Week. Murray State enters the OVC tournament with one loss and is playing for a high NCAA seed. Coach Steve Prohm is hopeful that an OVC win will equate to a top-four seed to protect the Racers. Putting Murray in Nashville might not be as much of a reach if it wins.
Washington at UCLA (2 ET, CBS): The Huskies have emerged as the class of the Pac-12. UCLA is trying to ensure that it still has class. The Bruins need some sort of momentum going into the Pac-12 tournament in Los Angeles. Washington has a chance to improve its NCAA seeding with a strong performance in L.A. and then next week at the Staples Center.
Louisville at Syracuse (4 ET, CBS): The Orange are the Big East No. 1 seed and a lock for a No. 1 NCAA seed. The question in this game is whether Louisville can find its offensive flow after a disheartening performance against South Florida. The Cardinals won’t get healthy at Syracuse but need to find an offensive identity before the Big East tournament.
Baylor at Iowa State (7 ET, ESPN3): Iowa State had Missouri on the ropes in Columbia earlier in the week; Baylor is finally starting to find its mojo at the right time of the season. Forgive the Bears if they drop this game in Ames — this is much more about Iowa State. The Cyclones are going to make the NCAA tournament and could be a spoiler in the Big 12 tourney. Don’t dismiss this team's chances stealing the Big 12 tournament.
Yale at Penn (7 ET): Penn has to sweep Brown and Yale to set up a possible showdown with Princeton that could hand the Ivy League title to Harvard with a Quakers loss (assuming Harvard wins at Columbia and Cornell) or set up a possible playoff game with the Crimson for the Ivy automatic bid.
Texas at Kansas (9 ET, ESPN): Texas passes a number of eye tests — except that the Longhorns haven’t taken down one of the Big 12's big three this season in Kansas, Missouri and Baylor. The Longhorns probably won’t get this one, but the game might be more about their ability to be competitive going into the Big 12 tournament.
Sunday
Kentucky at Florida (Noon ET, CBS): Kentucky is hoping to lock up an undefeated SEC season and ensure itself the No. 1 overall seed ahead of Syracuse. The Gators, meanwhile, have been a bit of an enigma. Florida needs some momentum going into the SEC tournament. The Gators will need to make 3s and Patric Young must stay on the court to be an effective post player.
Missouri Valley title game (2 ET, CBS): The OVC is the first bid thief possibility. Sunday’s MVC title game could be the second of the weekend. If Creighton and Wichita State are in this game, there isn’t a problem. But if a third team sneaks in there and wins, suddenly the MVC will get three bids. If it’s a Creighton-Wichita final Sunday, expect a great atmosphere and a highly competitive affair yet again.
Ohio State at Michigan State (4 ET, CBS): The Spartans are vying to win the Big Ten title outright, something that seemed like a bit of a reach when they started 0-2 and then Ohio State destroyed Duke. But the Spartans’ Feb. 11 victory at Ohio State might go down as one of the most significant in a conference this season. It shifted the power and put the Spartans in position possibly to get a No. 1 seed. Look for the Spartans to win on Draymond Green’s senior night, capping off a great career that should end with him grabbing a Big Ten player-of-the-year trophy over Jared Sullinger.
Purdue at Indiana (6 ET, BTN): The Hoosiers have been one of the best home-court teams in the country. But they rocked the Boilermakers in Mackey Arena by 17. Purdue doesn’t forget. This is a great chance for payback by Purdue, which has been on a high of late. These two teams are both going to be in the NCAA tournament, with legit chances to win a game.
Editor’s Note: To see our expert picks for each of the nation’s 12 top conferences, click here. To cast your vote in these races, visit SportsNation.
A quick look at the player and coach of the year races in the Big East:
Player of the year
Syracuse is far and away the best team in the Big East Conference.
Which is great when it comes to winning games, but a real problem when you’re trying to sort out player of the year trophies.
Usually you can at least find one obvious candidate from the best team in the conference. With the Orange, that’s impossible. Together they are unbeatable, but individually they almost cancel one another out. Is Scoop Jardine more valuable than Kris Joseph? Does Joseph do more than Fab Melo? How about Dion Waiters, the guy who comes off the bench to rank second on the team in scoring?
All four will get and deserve votes but Syracuse is truly a sum-of-its-parts squad, one where every piece is critical but none more than the others. Someone on this team could win Big East POY -- and if we were voting, we’d lean Waiters -- but it’s not likely.
So who are the obvious candidates? There are two front-runners – Marquette’s Darius Johnson-Odom and West Virginia’s Kevin Jones.
Johnson-Odom has been terrific for a team that has been rock steady all year. Second in the Big East (behind Jones) in scoring, he averages 18.4 points per game. He’s scored in double figures in every game he’s played in save one -- suspended for the first half against West Virginia, he had nine.
Jones, in the meantime, had to be great for coach Bob Huggins’ young team to survive -- and the senior forward has been great. Along with leading the league in scoring and rebounding (20 points and 11 boards), he’s put up 18 double-doubles this season.
Some other long shots to consider: Marquette's Jae Crowder, Notre Dame’s Jack Cooley, Georgetown’s Jason Clark and Seton Hall’s Herb Pope. St. John’s freshmen D’Angelo Harrison and Moe Harkless have been terrific but there’s another newcomer award for them.
It’s a tough pick between the two favorites and I waffle daily but I’d probably lean Johnson-Odom because he has not only been sensational, his team has been, too.
Coach of the year
Interesting test case here -- do you reward the guy who has steered the loaded roster to near perfection or do you celebrate coaches who have had surprising success?
Jim Boeheim is one trip to South Bend away from perfection, achieving such rarefied air despite dealing with the fallout from the Bernie Fine scandal in December. Outsiders might argue that a kindergartener could coach a team with so much depth and talent. What looks easy, though, isn’t always. Managing a team -- especially in this day and age, when premier players come in with premier egos -- is not easy.
And Boeheim hasn’t steered a team to near perfection in any old league. He’s done it in the Big East.
Mike Brey and John Thompson III, meantime, took the opposite run to success. Neither is supposed to be here.
The Irish were picked ninth in the league, and that was before Tim Abromaitis blew out his knee. After that? No one figured Brey’s team to be of any consequence.
But Brey, who memorably retooled his team two years ago after Luke Harangody’s injury, has done it again. Notre Dame is 12-5 in the league, vying for a top-four finish. Brey, who won coach of the year honors last year, has imbued his team with confidence, handing over the keys to the sophomore backcourt of Eric Atkins and Jerian Grant, and letting them run the show.
Thompson’s year at Georgetown has been equally impressive and equally surprising. The Hoyas were picked 10th in the preseason coaches’ poll after losing Chris Wright and Austin Freeman to graduation.
Instead, Georgetown is knotted with Notre Dame at 12-5. Henry Sims has been an eye-opener, the ideal point-center for the Hoyas’ Princeton style, and Otto Porter is arguably among the top freshmen in the conference.
Outsider choices: Mike Dunlap and Stan Heath. Dunlap is supposed to be an assistant, helping Steve Lavin. Instead, while Lavin recuperates from prostate cancer surgery, Dunlap has been running the show at St. John's, and running it with a roster stuffed to the gills with freshmen. Heath, meantime, has pulled himself off the hot seat and the Bulls into the conversation, taking South Florida to its best finish since joining the Big East.
This is another can’t-go-wrong choice. And hey, could you argue with Marquette's Buzz Williams winning it too? Not me.
My pick: Boeheim. The name of the game is winning, and no one in the league has done that better this year than the Syracuse coach.
A quick look at the player and coach of the year races in the Big East:
Player of the year
Syracuse is far and away the best team in the Big East Conference.
Which is great when it comes to winning games, but a real problem when you’re trying to sort out player of the year trophies.
Usually you can at least find one obvious candidate from the best team in the conference. With the Orange, that’s impossible. Together they are unbeatable, but individually they almost cancel one another out. Is Scoop Jardine more valuable than Kris Joseph? Does Joseph do more than Fab Melo? How about Dion Waiters, the guy who comes off the bench to rank second on the team in scoring?
[+] Enlarge
Howard Smith/US PresswireMarquette's Darius Johnson-Odom's 18.4 points per game could earn him player of the year honors in the Big East.
Howard Smith/US PresswireMarquette's Darius Johnson-Odom's 18.4 points per game could earn him player of the year honors in the Big East.So who are the obvious candidates? There are two front-runners – Marquette’s Darius Johnson-Odom and West Virginia’s Kevin Jones.
Johnson-Odom has been terrific for a team that has been rock steady all year. Second in the Big East (behind Jones) in scoring, he averages 18.4 points per game. He’s scored in double figures in every game he’s played in save one -- suspended for the first half against West Virginia, he had nine.
Jones, in the meantime, had to be great for coach Bob Huggins’ young team to survive -- and the senior forward has been great. Along with leading the league in scoring and rebounding (20 points and 11 boards), he’s put up 18 double-doubles this season.
Some other long shots to consider: Marquette's Jae Crowder, Notre Dame’s Jack Cooley, Georgetown’s Jason Clark and Seton Hall’s Herb Pope. St. John’s freshmen D’Angelo Harrison and Moe Harkless have been terrific but there’s another newcomer award for them.
It’s a tough pick between the two favorites and I waffle daily but I’d probably lean Johnson-Odom because he has not only been sensational, his team has been, too.
Coach of the year
Interesting test case here -- do you reward the guy who has steered the loaded roster to near perfection or do you celebrate coaches who have had surprising success?
[+] Enlarge
Mark Konezny/US PresswireJim Boeheim has coached Syracuse to near perfection. But does he deserve to be the Big East coach of the year?
Mark Konezny/US PresswireJim Boeheim has coached Syracuse to near perfection. But does he deserve to be the Big East coach of the year?And Boeheim hasn’t steered a team to near perfection in any old league. He’s done it in the Big East.
Mike Brey and John Thompson III, meantime, took the opposite run to success. Neither is supposed to be here.
The Irish were picked ninth in the league, and that was before Tim Abromaitis blew out his knee. After that? No one figured Brey’s team to be of any consequence.
But Brey, who memorably retooled his team two years ago after Luke Harangody’s injury, has done it again. Notre Dame is 12-5 in the league, vying for a top-four finish. Brey, who won coach of the year honors last year, has imbued his team with confidence, handing over the keys to the sophomore backcourt of Eric Atkins and Jerian Grant, and letting them run the show.
Thompson’s year at Georgetown has been equally impressive and equally surprising. The Hoyas were picked 10th in the preseason coaches’ poll after losing Chris Wright and Austin Freeman to graduation.
Instead, Georgetown is knotted with Notre Dame at 12-5. Henry Sims has been an eye-opener, the ideal point-center for the Hoyas’ Princeton style, and Otto Porter is arguably among the top freshmen in the conference.
Outsider choices: Mike Dunlap and Stan Heath. Dunlap is supposed to be an assistant, helping Steve Lavin. Instead, while Lavin recuperates from prostate cancer surgery, Dunlap has been running the show at St. John's, and running it with a roster stuffed to the gills with freshmen. Heath, meantime, has pulled himself off the hot seat and the Bulls into the conversation, taking South Florida to its best finish since joining the Big East.
This is another can’t-go-wrong choice. And hey, could you argue with Marquette's Buzz Williams winning it too? Not me.
My pick: Boeheim. The name of the game is winning, and no one in the league has done that better this year than the Syracuse coach.
Syracuse put a bow on its nearly perfect Big East run, sewing up the conference’s regular-season honors. But there’s still much jockeying to be done in the final week -- for bubble positions and, more immediately, for seeding positions for the Big East tournament. The top four earn the double bye.
1. Syracuse: The Orange clinched the regular-season crown with a win that might have been more impressive than the other 15. Syracuse needed to stave off UConn for a victory that made up in grit what it lacked in style points.
2. Marquette: Not even the absence of four starters for a half could keep the Golden Eagles down or Buzz Williams from dancing. Marquette’s rally from an 11-point halftime deficit at West Virginia proved this is a very good team.
3. Georgetown: You almost had to feel for Villanova. The Hoyas went and got inexplicably clobbered by Seton Hall. Someone was going to pay. The Wildcats were the victim, sliced and diced by 21.
4. Notre Dame: Nothing lasts forever, not even the Irish’s luck. Notre Dame’s nine-game streak ended at the hands of St. John’s and an awful 4-of-31 performance from beyond the arc. The Irish need to fix that or their Big East tournament visit won’t last long, either.
5. Louisville: The Cardinals are among the teams pushing to grab that last top-seed position. To get it, they’ll need to win two tough ones -- against equally hungry South Florida and at Syracuse.
6. South Florida: The Bulls will be among the most watched teams all the way through Selection Sunday. South Florida is 11-5 in the league after beating Cincinnati but still needs a signature win. The Bulls have a chance at Louisville and then with a home game against fellow bubble resident West Virginia.
7. Cincinnati: Most folks believe the Bearcats are in the Dance. But they certainly don’t want to make it easy. Cincinnati scored 45 points against South Florida’s defense and now has to finish up against Marquette and Villanova. A loss to the Wildcats isn’t how Cincinnati wants to finish the season.
8. Seton Hall: The Pirates giveth; the Pirates taketh away. A hugely impressive win against Georgetown proved why Seton Hall deserves NCAA consideration. A home overtime loss to Rutgers negated some of the good. How the Hall finishes will be critical.
9. Connecticut: The Huskies showed more in defeat than they have all season, finally displaying some energy, hustle and feistiness in their loss to Syracuse. The question is: Was it too late? UConn absolutely cannot lose to Providence or Pitt to finish the season.
10. West Virginia: Kevin Jones might be the best player in the conference, but his team is trying to dull his star and keep him out of the NCAA tournament. The Mountaineers are fading, losing four of their past five. Jones struggled with foul trouble against Marquette, and no one picked up the slack.
11. St. John’s: Technically, Madison Square Garden is a home-court advantage for the Red Storm. The way this young team is playing, it just might take advantage of it. Moe Harkless and D’Angelo Harrison, perhaps as good a one-two punch as there is in the league, led St. John’s to its upset of Notre Dame, its third win in a row.
12. Rutgers: There’s nothing like a win against your rival to cure what ails you. And we’ll see whether that’s the case for the Scarlet Knights, who ended a six-game skid by upsetting Seton Hall. Now it’s up to Rutgers to use the momentum well against Villanova and St. John’s.
13. Pittsburgh: Saddled with injury and illness, the Panthers came up short on an upset bid against Louisville. That’s five losses in a row, a streak the Panthers need to end to gain some confidence heading into New York.
14. Villanova: Maalik Wayns returned. JayVaughn Pinkston turned his ankle during pregame warm-ups. That about sums up the Wildcats’ season, which is limping -- quite literally -- to a merciful finish.
15. Providence: At this point of the season, the Friars are latching onto any good news: Blowing a 17-point lead yet still beating DePaul thanks to Vincent Council’s late heroics qualifies.
16. DePaul: The promise of a new beginning for the Blue Demons in the Big East has faded to the same result. DePaul will need to beat both West Virginia and Seton Hall to crawl out of their regular conference-basement seat for the Big East tournament.
1. Syracuse: The Orange clinched the regular-season crown with a win that might have been more impressive than the other 15. Syracuse needed to stave off UConn for a victory that made up in grit what it lacked in style points.
2. Marquette: Not even the absence of four starters for a half could keep the Golden Eagles down or Buzz Williams from dancing. Marquette’s rally from an 11-point halftime deficit at West Virginia proved this is a very good team.
3. Georgetown: You almost had to feel for Villanova. The Hoyas went and got inexplicably clobbered by Seton Hall. Someone was going to pay. The Wildcats were the victim, sliced and diced by 21.
4. Notre Dame: Nothing lasts forever, not even the Irish’s luck. Notre Dame’s nine-game streak ended at the hands of St. John’s and an awful 4-of-31 performance from beyond the arc. The Irish need to fix that or their Big East tournament visit won’t last long, either.
5. Louisville: The Cardinals are among the teams pushing to grab that last top-seed position. To get it, they’ll need to win two tough ones -- against equally hungry South Florida and at Syracuse.
6. South Florida: The Bulls will be among the most watched teams all the way through Selection Sunday. South Florida is 11-5 in the league after beating Cincinnati but still needs a signature win. The Bulls have a chance at Louisville and then with a home game against fellow bubble resident West Virginia.
7. Cincinnati: Most folks believe the Bearcats are in the Dance. But they certainly don’t want to make it easy. Cincinnati scored 45 points against South Florida’s defense and now has to finish up against Marquette and Villanova. A loss to the Wildcats isn’t how Cincinnati wants to finish the season.
8. Seton Hall: The Pirates giveth; the Pirates taketh away. A hugely impressive win against Georgetown proved why Seton Hall deserves NCAA consideration. A home overtime loss to Rutgers negated some of the good. How the Hall finishes will be critical.
9. Connecticut: The Huskies showed more in defeat than they have all season, finally displaying some energy, hustle and feistiness in their loss to Syracuse. The question is: Was it too late? UConn absolutely cannot lose to Providence or Pitt to finish the season.
10. West Virginia: Kevin Jones might be the best player in the conference, but his team is trying to dull his star and keep him out of the NCAA tournament. The Mountaineers are fading, losing four of their past five. Jones struggled with foul trouble against Marquette, and no one picked up the slack.
11. St. John’s: Technically, Madison Square Garden is a home-court advantage for the Red Storm. The way this young team is playing, it just might take advantage of it. Moe Harkless and D’Angelo Harrison, perhaps as good a one-two punch as there is in the league, led St. John’s to its upset of Notre Dame, its third win in a row.
12. Rutgers: There’s nothing like a win against your rival to cure what ails you. And we’ll see whether that’s the case for the Scarlet Knights, who ended a six-game skid by upsetting Seton Hall. Now it’s up to Rutgers to use the momentum well against Villanova and St. John’s.
13. Pittsburgh: Saddled with injury and illness, the Panthers came up short on an upset bid against Louisville. That’s five losses in a row, a streak the Panthers need to end to gain some confidence heading into New York.
14. Villanova: Maalik Wayns returned. JayVaughn Pinkston turned his ankle during pregame warm-ups. That about sums up the Wildcats’ season, which is limping -- quite literally -- to a merciful finish.
15. Providence: At this point of the season, the Friars are latching onto any good news: Blowing a 17-point lead yet still beating DePaul thanks to Vincent Council’s late heroics qualifies.
16. DePaul: The promise of a new beginning for the Blue Demons in the Big East has faded to the same result. DePaul will need to beat both West Virginia and Seton Hall to crawl out of their regular conference-basement seat for the Big East tournament.
Video: Buzz Williams dancing at WVU
February, 25, 2012
Feb 25
12:42
AM ET
By ESPN.com staff | ESPN.com
Buzz Williams after Marquette sets school-record with 13th Big East win.
Highlights: Marquette 61, West Virginia 60
February, 25, 2012
Feb 25
12:06
AM ET
By ESPN.com staff | ESPN.com
Tenth-ranked Marquette got 26 points from Jae Crowder and slipped past host West Virginia, 61-60. Marquette benched three starters in the first half for breaking team rules.
Editor’s note: Jay Bilas breaks down Missouri-Kansas in today’s Weekend Watch. Andy Katz offers a dozen more games to keep an eye on this weekend.
Friday
Marquette at West Virginia (9 ET, ESPN): West Virginia has to win this game, right? The Mountaineers have lost six of their past eight games. The only wins were over lower-level teams (Providence and Pitt) on the road. Marquette has been on a tear of late and may have the Big East Player of the Year in Jae Crowder or Darius Johnson-Odom.
Saturday
Vanderbilt at Kentucky (noon ET, CBS): Kentucky has three games left to finish off an undefeated SEC regular season. No offense to Georgia, but the Cats should take care of the Bulldogs. If UK takes out Vandy, the only obstacle left is a game at Florida to end the regular season. If Kentucky can accomplish an unblemished mark, it would go down as one of the most impressive regular seasons in coach John Calipari’s career.
Iowa State at Kansas State (1:30 ET, ESPN3): Wins at Baylor and Missouri have changed the complexion of Kansas State’s season. The Wildcats have finally finished games by playing smart in the final possessions. Iowa State has a tough slate to finish the season with games at K-State and Missouri and then hosting Baylor. Not an easy road for a team that wants to wrap up an at-large bid.
North Carolina at Virginia (4 ET, ESPN): UVa has had injury issues and hasn’t been able to find consistency against the league’s elite (Duke and North Carolina). But the Cavs have a shot to re-establish themselves. This could turn into an ACC Player of the Year-type game as Tyler Zeller of the Tar Heels matches up with Mike Scott of the Cavs. UVa must ensure that it controls the tempo to have a chance.
Mississippi State at Alabama (6 ET, ESPN): Mississippi State has stumbled down the stretch and has no momentum going into the SEC tournament. The Bulldogs have lost to the bottom of the SEC and now to Kentucky at the top. Meanwhile, Alabama has done a tremendous job, despite player suspensions, to be in the hunt for an NCAA tournament berth. The win at Arkansas was one of the more impressive for the Tide this season.
George Mason at VCU (6 ET, ESPN2): George Mason was going to be in position to possibly catch Drexel and win the conference. But an overtime loss at Northeastern has pushed the Patriots into a second-place tie with VCU. The winner will get the No. 2 seed in the CAA tournament and potentially set up for a final matchup against Drexel.
Temple at Saint Joseph’s (7 ET, ESPNU): Temple has emerged as the class of the A-10. St. Joe’s had some fleeting hopes of getting a bid, but the Hawks lost at home to Richmond and scored only 49 points in the process. This is now a must-win for them. This is a huge rivalry game but the toughness of the Owls should prevail.
Penn at Harvard (7 ET, ESPN3): If Harvard gets by Princeton on Friday night, a win against Penn could give the Crimson a share of the Ivy League title and a chance to clinch it outright the following Friday at Columbia. Harvard is trying to get to the NCAAs for the first time since 1946.
Syracuse at Connecticut (9 ET, ESPN): The Huskies have new life after Shabazz Napier’s 3-point heave went in to beat Villanova on Monday night. The Orange have been as good, if not better, on the road than at home -- other than at Notre Dame. Syracuse should dominate the bench scoring. The Huskies have a chance if Andre Drummond and Alex Oriakhi can win the post, and Napier and Ryan Boatright can get into the zone with floaters to score. UConn is in desperate mode to get this win.
Sunday
Wisconsin at Ohio State (4 ET, CBS): The Badgers lost at Iowa on Thursday night and now have to go to Ohio State? Yikes. Iowa let Wisconsin back in the game, but then the Badgers couldn’t finish and lost by one. OSU, save the game against Michigan State, has been as dominant at home as any team in the country. The Badgers have to find a way to score and avoid the droughts that can decimate their chances of pulling off an upset like this one.
California at Colorado (5:30 ET, FSN): Colorado had a chance to make some noise down the stretch in the Pac-12, but losing at home to Stanford took some of the energy out of this game. The Buffaloes had overachieved to that point. Cal needs to get a sweep of the mountain area to win the Pac-12 regular-season title, assuming Washington doesn’t stumble.
Florida State at Miami (6 ET, ESPNU): The Seminoles lost their shot to win the ACC regular-season title by dropping a home game to Duke. Miami desperately needs this game to prove to the selection committee that it is tourney-worthy. This game will have ACC tournament seeding implications as well.
Friday
Marquette at West Virginia (9 ET, ESPN): West Virginia has to win this game, right? The Mountaineers have lost six of their past eight games. The only wins were over lower-level teams (Providence and Pitt) on the road. Marquette has been on a tear of late and may have the Big East Player of the Year in Jae Crowder or Darius Johnson-Odom.
Saturday
Vanderbilt at Kentucky (noon ET, CBS): Kentucky has three games left to finish off an undefeated SEC regular season. No offense to Georgia, but the Cats should take care of the Bulldogs. If UK takes out Vandy, the only obstacle left is a game at Florida to end the regular season. If Kentucky can accomplish an unblemished mark, it would go down as one of the most impressive regular seasons in coach John Calipari’s career.
Iowa State at Kansas State (1:30 ET, ESPN3): Wins at Baylor and Missouri have changed the complexion of Kansas State’s season. The Wildcats have finally finished games by playing smart in the final possessions. Iowa State has a tough slate to finish the season with games at K-State and Missouri and then hosting Baylor. Not an easy road for a team that wants to wrap up an at-large bid.
North Carolina at Virginia (4 ET, ESPN): UVa has had injury issues and hasn’t been able to find consistency against the league’s elite (Duke and North Carolina). But the Cavs have a shot to re-establish themselves. This could turn into an ACC Player of the Year-type game as Tyler Zeller of the Tar Heels matches up with Mike Scott of the Cavs. UVa must ensure that it controls the tempo to have a chance.
Mississippi State at Alabama (6 ET, ESPN): Mississippi State has stumbled down the stretch and has no momentum going into the SEC tournament. The Bulldogs have lost to the bottom of the SEC and now to Kentucky at the top. Meanwhile, Alabama has done a tremendous job, despite player suspensions, to be in the hunt for an NCAA tournament berth. The win at Arkansas was one of the more impressive for the Tide this season.
George Mason at VCU (6 ET, ESPN2): George Mason was going to be in position to possibly catch Drexel and win the conference. But an overtime loss at Northeastern has pushed the Patriots into a second-place tie with VCU. The winner will get the No. 2 seed in the CAA tournament and potentially set up for a final matchup against Drexel.
Temple at Saint Joseph’s (7 ET, ESPNU): Temple has emerged as the class of the A-10. St. Joe’s had some fleeting hopes of getting a bid, but the Hawks lost at home to Richmond and scored only 49 points in the process. This is now a must-win for them. This is a huge rivalry game but the toughness of the Owls should prevail.
Penn at Harvard (7 ET, ESPN3): If Harvard gets by Princeton on Friday night, a win against Penn could give the Crimson a share of the Ivy League title and a chance to clinch it outright the following Friday at Columbia. Harvard is trying to get to the NCAAs for the first time since 1946.
Syracuse at Connecticut (9 ET, ESPN): The Huskies have new life after Shabazz Napier’s 3-point heave went in to beat Villanova on Monday night. The Orange have been as good, if not better, on the road than at home -- other than at Notre Dame. Syracuse should dominate the bench scoring. The Huskies have a chance if Andre Drummond and Alex Oriakhi can win the post, and Napier and Ryan Boatright can get into the zone with floaters to score. UConn is in desperate mode to get this win.
Sunday
Wisconsin at Ohio State (4 ET, CBS): The Badgers lost at Iowa on Thursday night and now have to go to Ohio State? Yikes. Iowa let Wisconsin back in the game, but then the Badgers couldn’t finish and lost by one. OSU, save the game against Michigan State, has been as dominant at home as any team in the country. The Badgers have to find a way to score and avoid the droughts that can decimate their chances of pulling off an upset like this one.
California at Colorado (5:30 ET, FSN): Colorado had a chance to make some noise down the stretch in the Pac-12, but losing at home to Stanford took some of the energy out of this game. The Buffaloes had overachieved to that point. Cal needs to get a sweep of the mountain area to win the Pac-12 regular-season title, assuming Washington doesn’t stumble.
Florida State at Miami (6 ET, ESPNU): The Seminoles lost their shot to win the ACC regular-season title by dropping a home game to Duke. Miami desperately needs this game to prove to the selection committee that it is tourney-worthy. This game will have ACC tournament seeding implications as well.
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The big, burly Jack Cooley emerged in the paint to deflect the hopeless Jabarie Hinds' shot, Hinds' sixth miss on a Wednesday night that saw him whiff on eight of his nine attempts inside a hellacious Joyce Center. Eric Atkins ended up with the ball and threw ahead to backcourt mate Jerian Grant, who lifted off from outside the paint, going for what his coach would later term "the jugular."
Grant's monster slam attempt from the left side rimmed out toward the Notre Dame bench, just as his momentum was carrying him that way. Five seconds later, alone with the ball in his hands, Grant swished his fourth and final 3 of the night, pausing in front of his bench to take in the celebration of a lead that never stopped growing.
If ever a sequence summed up the Irish's night, the Irish's past month, amidst this historic stretch, it came in that 12-second sequence midway through the second half of a 71-44 rout of West Virginia. Notre Dame has now won nine straight games, a school record in Big East play, and there's no sign of things slowing down.
The Irish's next stop comes Saturday at Madison Square Garden, and a win there over St. John's will clinch a double-bye for the return trip nearly two weeks later for the Big East tournament.
"I think it's a bonus, just to be able to get in there and play a game and then be back," Grant said. "I think we can get a nice rhythm in there, and it will be good for us when the tournament comes."
Grant's 20 points off 8-for-11 shooting (including 4-of-5 from 3) led the attack for the Irish, who had four players in double-figures. They shot better than 61 percent from the floor, breaking open a two-point game at halftime and holding the Mountaineers to just 16 points in the second half.
[+] Enlarge
Matt Cashore/US PRESSWIRENotre Dame's Jerian Grant scored 20 points on 8-of-11 shooting -- including 4-of-5 from 3-point range -- in a blowout of West Virginia.
Matt Cashore/US PRESSWIRENotre Dame's Jerian Grant scored 20 points on 8-of-11 shooting -- including 4-of-5 from 3-point range -- in a blowout of West Virginia.Grant, meanwhile, was a catalyst on both ends of the court. He was active on the perimeter, forcing the Mountaineer guards into bad spots, and capitalized on the other end with a pair of fast-break dunks that jarred the leftover tension from a rugged first half.
"Jerian got some nice dunks tonight, they were pretty impressive," forward Scott Martin said. "But I think what's more important than those is his defensive energy, and the way he bothers people. Him and Eric up top, they frustrate people -- I would not want to bring the ball up against those two. They have a very nice chemistry, the way they hand people off, and they have that unspoken little connection there that's paying dividends for us."
Right now that backcourt and so much more has the Irish 12-3 in the Big East, tied for second place and undefeated in the past 32 days since a Jan. 21 upset over then-undefeated Syracuse. They've been rolling since, wrestling one away in Morgantown two weeks ago, completing a school-record 20-point comeback in an overtime win Saturday at Villanova and playing a nearly perfect second half Wednesday to continue this run.
The last Notre Dame team to win eight in a row in Big East play featured current assistants Harold Swanagan and Martin Ingelsby in 2001, Mike Brey's first season as the Irish's head coach.
"He kind of joked about it, about saying you guys can talk smack to those two," Atkins said of Brey.
For now, Brey will talk to his team about playing at the Garden, an obstacle the three-time conference coach of the year has yet to overcome, never reaching the title game and the accompanying Broadway lights that come with it.
A quick turnaround awaits Monday against Georgetown at the Verizon Center, where the Irish, stinging from the loss of leading scorer Tim Abromaitis, fell to 5-4 in a loss to Maryland nearly three months ago.
But that reminder will be put on hold for a few more days.
"We're a lot different than the team that was in D.C. in that building in December," Brey said, stating the obvious. "That's what I'm gonna talk about Sunday."
Rapid Reaction: Notre Dame 71, WVU 44
February, 22, 2012
Feb 22
8:48
PM ET
By
Matt Fortuna | ESPN.com
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Here's a quick look at Notre Dame's 71-44 rout of West Virginia at the Joyce Center:
How it happened: Coming off the greatest comeback in school history Saturday at Villanova, Notre Dame extended its winning streak to nine games, a program record in Big East play. The Irish, now 12-3 in Big East play, shot lights out, hitting 27 of 44 field goal attempts and were 9-of-16 from 3. West Virginia shot just 31.5 percent for the game and scored just 16 second-half points after trailing 30-28 at halftime. The Irish stood up to the Mountaineers' interior in the second half after being outrebounded in the first 20 minutes.
Turning point: Notre Dame went on a 13-0 run early in the second half that spanned more than five minutes. The Irish extended their lead from five to 18 and effectively put the game out of reach. West Virginia missed all seven of its field-goal attempts and both free throw tries during the run, which ended with a Gary Browne lay-in that featured a few too many steps for the home crowd's pleasure. Scott Martin hit a 3 on the ensuing possession to restore order and put the Irish up 53-34.
Star of the game: Jerian Grant was everywhere, scoring a game-high 20 points on 8-of-11 shooting. He provided plenty of energy with active defense, timely 3-pointers and two fast-break dunks. He led a balanced attack that saw four different Irish players score in double figures.
What's next: West Virginia has a quick turnaround as it tries to build its NCAA-tournament résumé Friday against Marquette before closing the regular season with DePaul and at South Florida. Notre Dame, meanwhile, will look to avoid a trap game Saturday at St. John's before its showdown Monday at Georgetown.
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Eamonn Brennan
Brennan joined ESPN.com in 2009 after several years of blogging at Yahoo! and other places around the Internet. The Iowa native lives in Chicago with his roommates, his dog, and a crippling addiction to caffeine.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL CONTRIBUTORS
Andy KatzESPN Archive |
Jason King
ESPN Archive
|
Myron Medcalf
ESPN Archive
|
Dana O'Neil
ESPN Archive
|