Big East Tournament, Ray Floriani

SIGHTS & SOUNDS FROM MSG: THE SEMIS

by Ray Floriani 

NEW YORK CITY – The championship game will be a rematch of last season. Pitt will be returning to the finals and appearing in its seventh Big East Tournament title game in the last eight years. Georgetown, looking very formidable these past two days, aims to defend the title and secure a number one seed in the NCAA tournament

The Scores :

Georgetown 72 West Virginia 55
Pitt 68 Marquette 61

In the opener it was vintage Georgetown over West Virginia. Roy Hibbert went scoreless a day earlier against Villanova but tonight the Hoyas went to their big man early and often. Hibbert finished with 25 points 13 boards and was a dominant force down low.

West Virginia trailed by a dozen at the break then early in the final half, started to find the range and closed the gap to a four with 12 minutes to play. Over the next nine minutes the Hoyas went on an 18-2 run. And this spurt was fueled by defense, a staple of Hoya postseason excellence for decades. Georgetown did a great job keeping fresh bodies on WVU’s Joe Alexander who had 12 points but struggled through a 5 of 16 shooting night.

“Joe Alexander is a terrific player playing at a very high level,” Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. “We had DaJuan(Summers),Patrick (Ewing, Jr.) and even Jeremiah (Rivers) take turns guarding him. Each one defends him in a different way.” Alexander in effect was facing three defenders all night long.

In the night cap thought a big key to was the Panthers getting out of the gate quickly. It’s tough to spot an opponent, especially the quality of Pitt, a double digit lead early in the contest.

Marquette showed a lot of grit and determination in battling back. What looked like a potential rout was a one possession game in the final minutes. Jerel McNeal continued his fine play through the tournament with 17 points. Dominic James scored his first points with 7:39 left in the game. James did finish with eight and every one was critical during the late game run.

While James struggled to score, Lazar Haywood came up with a nice game. The 6-6 sophomore scored 10 points while grabbing 6 boards. Haywood was effective from the perimeter as well as in the lane.

Sam Young was another big key to this Pitt win. He’s had a great week and if the Panthers win tonight, should be the tournament MVP. The Pitt forward had a game high 22 points and a huge rebound with 34 seconds to go and the game still for the taking. The 6-6 junior is a tough matchup problem because he can take opponents off the dribble and is very strong inside. He was a major difference for Pitt.

Also complementing Young was Ronald Ramon , a senior guard with 14 points and most of which seemed to come at very crucial stages in the game.

The poise and cool of Pitt was another point to mention. Poise. Pitt thrives in the bright lights of MSG. They have a number of New York area players and love competing at the ‘world’s most famous arena’. Usually teams that surrender a significant lead will succumb to the pressure of the fast charging opponent and those bright lights which suddenly feel uncomfortably hot. Not the Panthers who treat the Garden as a second home.

Jamie Dixon , the Pitt coach credited Marquette for battling back and noted, “they out rebounded us 47-32 and had 21 offensive boards. The big difference for us was taking care of the ball (11 turnovers).”

Final thoughts…Hibbert didn’t score a point in Georgetown’s quarterfinal win over Villanova. No concern for Thompson . “Villanova tripled teamed Roy (Hibbert) and dared us to make shots,” Thomspon said. “We didn’t have to go back to the drawing board after yesterday. We can win in a variety of ways.”

Stats…Hibbert is a 100% shooter from three point range. He hit one of one against West Virginia which makes him 3 of 3on the year. Of course the most memorable was the one beating UCONN in January.

Marquette had a great 47% offensive rebounding percentage against Pitt. Big difference, as Dixon said, was turnovers. Pitt had a 16% turnover rate (percentage of possessions ending as TOs). Marquette had a 24% rate. A 20% figure is an acceptable cutoff.

Empire State Building saluted the Big East by displaying the conference colors of red, blue and white in descending order. Display started at Sundown Friday and lasts through the weekend.

Sam Young on New York :”A lot of the guys on the team are from the New York area. Just looking up and seeing family and friends in the crowd is a great motivator.” Young incidentally hails from Cinton, MD, but knows the effect of close ones cheering you on.

West Virginia assistant Billy Hahn noted before the game, “a little better free throw shooting and we could have beat Georgetown, Pitt and Oklahoma. In those games we shot bad, around 50%.”

Huggins on Alexander’s progress : “He (Alexander) has made progress because he wants to. I never had a great player that didn’t want to be great. Joe puts the time in.”

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