Connecticut News, Connecticut Recruiting, Georgetown Recruiting, Louisville News, Marquette Recruiting, Notre Dame Recruiting, Pittsburgh News, Pittsburgh Recruiting, Providence News, Rutgers Recruiting, Seton Hall Recruiting, Transfers, USF News, West Virginia Recruiting

BIG EAST NEWS & NOTES (1/6/2009)

Notre Dame bounced back from the weekend’s tough loss to extend their home winning streak with a win over Georgetown. Pittsburgh begins work as the nation’s #1 team and looks to get better from here. Louisville is still trying to play with a full deck as their conference opener nears. Providence is hoping the pieces fall into place this year, finally. USF officially adds another transfer while Rutgers and Seton Hall look into the transfer route again to add talent to their rosters. An update on where Nate Miles stands in the judicial system of Connecticut as well as updates on Keon Lawrence, DeAndre Kane and more.

We will be back a little later to preview tonight’s Big East action…

Notre Dame extended their home winning streak to 44 games last night with a 73-67 win over Georgetown at the Joyce center in South Bend.

Just like on Saturday when Pitt’s DeJuan Blair battered his way to 20 points and 17 rebounds against the Hoyas, Luke Harangody was dominant in the paint. Harangody Was Huge for the Irish (Journal Gazette) with 31 points and 11 rebounds as the Irish Go To ‘Gody (South Bend Tribune) early and often. The Georgetown front line nor foul trouble could slow the 2007-2008 Big East Player of the Year as Harangody picked up his fourth foul at about the 15-minute mark. he did not sit for long as the Irish answered every mini-run the Hoyas mounted, usually with their leader providing what they needed.

Kyle McAlarney added 17 points for ND and Tory Jackson scored 10 points and dished out 7 assists in quarterbacking the offense. That quarterbacking touch seems to be missing from the Georgetown attack after the graduation of four-year starter Jonathan Wallace from last season.

Freshman Greg Monroe continued his strong play with 21 points and 10 rebounds, but his teammates only shot 37% in the game. Chris Wright scored 14 points. His athleticism and scoring potential was supposed to offer a second gear to the Hoyas, but it might have bit them in this one. After cutting the ND lead to 5 on an Austin Freeman basket with 9:51 left, Georgetown made a defensive stop and had a break opportunity, but Wright forced a shot in the lane that was rebounded and Harangody scored on a breakout to push the lead to 7. On the very next possession, Wright launched a quick three that was off and ND scored again, pushing the lead to nine and the beginning of a game-clinching 10-2 run was underway.

There was No Luck in Loss to Irish (Washington Times) for the Hoyas who lost for the second game in a row after beating UConn to open Big East play. The Irish dug down and used the motto of Don’t Get Mad, Get Even Tougher (Chicago Tribune) to rebound from their loss at St. John’s on Saturday.

The game with Georgetown was just a prelude to a tough slate ahead for the Irish. Following Saturday’s home date with Seton Hall, ND then faces, in succession, Louisville (at), Syracuse (at), Connecticut, Marquette and Pittsburgh. Ohhh, boy…life in the Big East!
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In 101 years of basketball competition, Pittsburgh has never been ranked #1 in the country…until yesterday. While the honor seems to have fans and others around the program, head coach Jamie Dixon has not lost site of the bugger prizes ahead for the Panthers and assures everyone that Being No. 1 Doesn’t Change Pitt’s Attitude of striving to get better.

Being #1 a Huge Boost to Pittsburgh Basketball Image (Post-Gazette), an image that was in need of great repair back in 1999 when athletic director Steve Pederson tabbed unknown Ben Howland to lead the program. Howland’s first hire was Jamie Dixon to his staff and the renaissance had begun.

It was evident in Pitt’s taking apart of Georgetown on the road in Saturday’s 70-54 win that the Panthers Have the Tools, But Must Show Consistency (Altoona Mirror) to get past the Sweet 16 and into the Elite 8, at least, for the first time since the 1974 season when Billy Knight starred for Pitt. It is a threshold that Dixon does not hide from and continues to push his squad to conquer.
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Louisville will be the final team to kick off their Big East schedule this week and have some momentum following their thrilling 74-71 win over Kentucky on Sunday. There is an impressive stable of talent in the Cardinal line-up, however, the Cards Still Haven’t Played With a Full Deck (Louisville Courier-Journal) as their collective performances have not matched their potential. If that potential begins to be tapped in the next two months, the Cards should again factor in the Big East race before the 18-game conference schedule is complete.

We will soon see if the Conference Season Will Change Things (Courier-Journal) for Rick Pitino’s squad.
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Providence is off to a 2-0 start in Big East play. Of course, tougher games are on the horizon, but For the Friars, the Time has Arrived to put the Pieces Together (Providence Journal) and make their push. With seniors Weyinmi Efejuku, Geoff McDermott, Jeff Xavier, Randall Hanke and Jonathan Kale, along with the return of redshirt junior Sharaud Curry and the excitement of new coach Keno Davis taking over the reigns, their are expectations for this Friar club in an unforgiving Big East.
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It is official, Anthony Crater Signs With South Florida (mlive.com) and the Flint (MI) native will have three and a half years of eligibility once eligible next December to play at South Florida.
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Here is an update from the South Bend Tribune on No. 15 Troy Murphy of the NBE Basketball Report’s Big East All-Time Top 50 Players. Murphy Has a Niche in the NBA and in a productive 8th professional season while earning a team-high $10.1 million with the Indiana Pacers.
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Adam Zagoria has some notes of interest to Big East fans in his Hamga, Kane, Lawrence, Odom Updates (ZagsBlog.com).

* UNLV 7-foot transfer Beas Hamga is still planning to check out Rutgers before deciding in his next destination. Hamga will try to visit this weekend when the Knights take on Syracuse. Hamga would be eligible next december after sitting out for a year at a new school. South Carolina and possibly Valpo are also under consideration. RU also has Florida transfer Jonathan Mitchell sitting out this season. Hamga redshirted last season at UNLV and played just 5 games this year.

* The DeAndre Kane commitment to Seton Hall continues to be open from debate with Kane giving mixed signals to everyone he is in contact with. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the 2008 Schenley Grad is a Big East Recruit, but will “probably wait until April to decide” with Marquette, Pittsburgh and SHU the options. At this time, it is very unclear how interested Pitt and MU really are and if either school even has a scholarship available for 2009.

* It looks like Seton Hall is still hoping that Keon Lawrence is granted a waiver by the NCAA to be able to play this season, rather than sit out the year after transferring from Missouri. However, Lawrence’s advisor has told ZagsBlog a couple times that Lawrence would sit out the remainder of the season since the decision continues to drag on. It definitely makes more sense for SHU to wait and allow Lawrence to play a full season next year and have another full season for 2010-2011, so this will be interesting to see how it plays out IF (and, it is still a big IF because there are conflicting stories on why Lawrence transferred from Missouri, they seem to have more to do with basketball than the family hardships that exist and have existed for some time) a waiver is granted. Sounds like SHU really wants him to help with a few games this year instead of having him a full two seasons which shoudl be better than this year…

* Zags also updates the recruitment of Rod Odom, a 6-foot-8 junior from the rigorous academic prep school the Middlesex (Ma.) School. Odom has just picked up an offer from Xavier to go along with offers from Rutgers, a href=”http://w3.nbebasketball.com/index.php/big-east-team-pages/seton-hall/”>Seton Hall and West Virginia and interest from Notre Dame, Connecticut and Pittsburgh from the Big East.
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The Memphis Commercial-Appeal reports that Memphis Tigers guard Jeff Robinson is to be Granted a Release from scholarship making the sophomore eligible to transfer. The word is he is looking to get closer to home and resurrect his career after falling completely out of the Memphis rotation this season. The former New Jersey prep star has Seton Hall high on his list of interested destinations. If he ends up there, might as well erect a smaller version of the Statue of Liberty outside the SHU campus as it is a school offering new life for the college basketball ‘homeless.’

Will be interesting to see if SHU or USF can make the transfer model of stocking a roster work…not sure if it has been done before successfully at the Big East or other major-conference level.
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Here is an update on ex-Connecticut player Nate Miles, who is still dealing with court procedures in CT following his expulsion from UConn: End in Sight for ex-Husky Miles (Norwich Bulletin).

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