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BIG EAST NEWS & NOTES (1/27/2010)

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A couple games on the Big East schedule Tuesday night and the drama was taken out of them early as WVU led Depaul 20-4 early and Marquette was up 25-7 over Rutgers. The Mountaineers and Golden Eagles cruised to victory without much of a fight, well, DePaul did get a little feisty, from the opposition.

Tonight, two more games, with UConn trying to avoid a letdown when they travel to Providence. Jim Calhoun will miss his third straight game for medical reasons. The Friars try to put the collapse of Saturday night behind them against a team they have had recent success against. Also, Notre Dame travels to Philly to take on Villanova.

In other Big East news, Syracuse is off to a great start, but still keying on one game at a time. Pitt’s guards have been logging a lot of minutes and Jamie Dixon hopes to use his bench more, find more interior production and hope that leads to some open three’s.

We also have several recruiting updates we found across the web of interest to Big East fans, including Jabarie Hinds, Josh and Devin Langford, Desmond Hubert and Jamal Lewis.

Also, it might be another month and a half away, but our 2010 Big East Tournament & Tickets page has the links needed for Big East basketball fans to purchase tickets to any or all of the 2010 Big East Tournament sessions. The Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden is an event Big east fans must experience when they have the opportunity and here is your chance to get your tickets early before they become harder, and more expensive, to find. Stub Hub and the Big East conference have teamed up to provide fans with quality tickets and you can get tickets to ANY Big East conference or non-league game by following this link: StubHub.com – The Safe Way to Buy & Sell Tickets Online

Read on below for all of today’s News & Notes…

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TUESDAY’S BIG EAST GAMES:

West Virginia 62, DePaul 46

West Virginia sprinted out to a 20-4 lead and never looked back in their 62-46 road win over DePaul Tuesday night in Big Eact conference action.

To their credit, DePaul Goes Down Fighting (Daily Herald) and before the game was over Blue Demon sophomore center Krys Faber and a Fan were Ejected in DePaul’s Loss (Daily Herald).

With 7:59 left in the contest and WVU leading by 11, officials went to the television monitors during a timeout to review Faber’s elbow in the face of Mountianeer senior Da’Sean Butler. They deemed the foul to be flagrant and Faber was tossed from the game.

Shortly before Faber’s ejection, DePaul’s best two players, Will Walker, who had a game-high 17 points, and Mac Koshwal (7 points, 7 rebounds in 24 minutes returning from a foot injury) picked up their fourth fouls and it apparently was too much for one fan to take as the referees ordered a DePaul official to eject one of the team’s biggest boosters from her front-row seat. Add in a 10-minute delay to start the second half as the clock and scoreboards were malfunctioning and both teams slogged through a dis-jointed second half that took seemingly forever.

The Blue Demons struggled all night offensively and quick bursts by WVU, including their 20-4 game opening run, allowed the Mountaineers to Run Away With It (Chicago Tribune). The knock-out punch was a 9-0 run during the DePaul foul troubles that pushed the lead as high as 19 and the offensively challenged (32% shooting) Blue Demons could not answer with any sustained runs of their own.

Wellington Smith got the Mountaineers going at the start of both halves and was 4-for-5 from 3-point range as he was one of four West Virginia starters that scored 14 points (Butler, Devin Ebanks and Daryl Bryant) and, coupled with his 11-point outing Saturday against Ohio State, reached double figures in scoring in back-to-back games for the first time in his career. Smith Leads the Mountaineers to Win (Daily Mail) on a night they needed a little extra offense as their bench production consisted of one free throw from Dalton Pepper and one free throw from John Flowers. As a whole, the WVU bench played 30 minutes, was 0-1 from the field, 2-4 from the line and added 1 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block, 1 steal, 2 turnovers and 8 personal fouls…what happened to their depth?

West Virginia will return home ot the Coliseum on Saturday to host Louisville. The win improved WVU, who is ranked No. 9 in the latest AP poll, to 5-2 in the Big East and 16-3 overall.

DePaul falls to 1-7 in the Big East and 8-12 on the season. The welcome another top-10 team to Allstate Arena this weekend as No. 4 Syracuse will visit Saturday at 2 PM.
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Marquette 82, Rutgers 59

The beat continues for Rutgers and coach Fred Hill. On Tuesday night it was Marquette taking it’s turn routing the Scarlet Knights.

RU seems to be the cure for what ails you in the Big East as the win was A Needed Shot in the Arm (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) as the Golden Eagles jump to big lead in first half and never look back as the Rutgers Men Lose their Ninth Game in a Row, 82-59 (Star-Ledger).

The Golden Eagles used a barrage of early three-pointers, jumping out of the games ahead 25-7, stretching it to 39-16 and leading 44-21 at the half against what is becoming the hapless Scarlet Knights. darius Johnson-Odom and Jimmy Butler paced five Marquette players in double figures with 16 points a each. Lazar Hayward added 12 points and 12 rebounds to the cause.

Marquette rebounded from last week’s road losses to DePaul and Syracuse to improve their conference mark to 3-5 and sit at 12-8 overall with a trip to Connecticut on tap this Saturday.

For Rutgers, now 0-8 in the Big East and 9-11 overall, the host Notre Dame Saturday evening at the RAC.
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WEDNESDAY’S BIG EAST SCHEDULE:

Connecticut (3-3) at Providence (3-4), 7:00 PM.

–Huskies Hope to Avoid Letdown (TheDay.com)
–Calhoun to Miss Third Game on Medical Leave (TheDay.com)
–UConn Men Look to Build Some Momentum (Waterbury Rep-Am)
–Capsule Preview: PC vs. UConn (Providence Journal)
–PC’s Davis: ‘I Take Responsibility’ for S. Florida Loss (Providence Journal)
–Keno Clarifies His Remarks After USF Loss (Pawtucket Times)

Talk about teams coming off games at the opposit ends of the spectrum. UConn might still be celebrating their stirring rout of No. 1 Texas at Gampel Pavilion on Saturday. The Huskies stormed back from a 10-point deficit early in the 2nd half to win by 14 on national TV.

On the other side, PC is still reeling from their final minute collapse against South Florida that saw them lose a 15-point lead in the final minutes of regulation and fall to the Bulls in overtime at the Dunk.

Both teams must put the past behind them and play the game on the schedule tonight. The one that is most capable of doing so will likely find the most success tonight.
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Notre Dame (4-3) at Villanova (7-0), 7:00 PM.

–Wicked Tes Begins Irish Road Stretch (Journal Gazette)
–Reynolds, Wildcats a Headache for Irish (South Bend Tribune)
–Getting Jay Was Wright Move for Villanova (Philadelphia Daily News)

The Irish are an interesting NCAA Tournament test case at this point in the season. They are hovering around .500 in the Big East and have one really bad loss (home to Loyola Marymount) in their non-conference resume and one really impressive win, albeit at home, against West Virginia during Big East play. They have a few other very winnable games a head before a daunting closing stretch to the regular season. Springing a road upset against the likes of ‘Nova would give their NCAA Tournament resume a little more meat to it.

The Wildcats have been cruising along and currently sit atop the Big East standings at 7-0. They have a great track record at home offensively and I have still not seen any signs from the Irish that they will be able to slow down the attacking style of Jay Wright’s team. We could be in store for a high scoring affair and ‘Nova has plenty of weapons to make that their advantage.
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MORE BIG EAST NEWS & NOTES:

With Syracuse sitting at 20-1 following Monday night’s thumping of Georgetown and currently ranked No. 4 in the nation, there is plenty of reason for optimism and looking ahead at the possible great things the team can accomplish. However, that will have to be left for the fans as coach Jim Boeheim and the players want no part of it as Syracuse is Focusing on One Game at a Time (Syracuse Post-Standard).

Coach Boeheim knows nothing is guaranteed. His only two other teams to start 20-1 in his 34-year run as SU head coach combined to win a single NCAA Tournament game…
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Pittsburgh will look to snap their two-game losing streak Thursday night when St. John’s visits the Pete. In order to do so, Jamie Dixon might look t give his starters a little more of a breather during the game as Dixon Has Time on His Mind (Beaver County Times) with his rotation top heavy on the perimeter.

Another way to take some of the pressure off the backcourt is to increase the touches of their frontcourt players. Currently, Pitt is Missing Scoring fromt he Center Position (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) as Gary McGhee and Dante Taylor have been largely invisible offensively in their last three games, outside of a few offensive rebound put-backs. They could look to play a little more inside-out going further in an attempt to free up the guards as Pitt Must Find a Way to Make More Threes (Beaver County Times).
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BIG EAST RECRUITING NOTES

Here is a name to remember in the future, 5-foot-11, sophomore point guard Jamal Lewis of Sidwell Friends in DC. Lewis Leads Sidwell to Win over Flint Hill (Washington Post) as he scored 21 points. Lewis runs on the AAU circuit with the powerful DC Assault program and showed numerous scoring skills in the win by slashing to the rim, drawing trips to the line and hitting mid-range jumpers.

According to the Quakers coach, Eric Singletary, Lewis is drawing interest from many top-level Division I programs, including Wake Forest and Syracuse.
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The New Haven Register has an update on Jabarie Hinds as he leads his Mount Vernon teammates into Connecticut to take on Hillhouse (CT) at the New Haven Athletic Center. Top Recruit Hinds is in the ‘House Tonight and many top college programs hope he calls their house his hime for college.

Division I programs who have already shown major interest in the 6-foot junior guard include Wake Forest, Louisville, Seton Hall, St. John’s, South Carolina, Oklahoma State, Virginia and James Madison.

“I will have to make a decision soon and it will be hard,” Hinds told the Register. “I will start taking visits (this summer) to see what the campuses are like. Academics will play a role and how the team plays. The location does not matter to me.”
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West Virginia has their eyes on a 2010 prospect, former Louisville-verbal commitment Josh Langford, who plays for Lee High in Huntsville (AL). Huggins Hopes to Roll into Alabama (Charleston Gazette) and snag a top spring recruit, but the competition is stiff as the 6-foot-6, 210-pound wing man has interest or offers from Alabama, Auburn, Georgetown, Georgia, Illinois, Clemson, Marquette and UNLV.

“Huggins and [Marquette coach] Buzz Williams were here the other night,” Lee coacg Greg Brown told the Gazette. “Buzz wants [Langford] bad too. Georgetown is coming [tonight].”

Brown, however, also said Huggins was taken by another Lee High General: Langford’s cousin, Devin, a 6-foot-6, 180-pound shooting guard in the 2011 class.

The Lee High coach said Marquette‘s Williams has already offered both Langfords. It’s been reported other schools like Alabama, Maryland, Wake Forest and Georgia have also already offered Devin Langford.
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Desmond Hubert lost his mother to breast cancer when he was in the eighth grade. So when the 6-foot-9 junior center and his New Egypt (NJ) boy’s basketball teammates played host to Allentown High School in a regular-season game last week that also raised funds and awareness for the Susan B. Komen Foundation and the American Cancer Society, Hubert had a little extra motivation as he dedicated his performance to the memory of his late mother.

Hubert scored 18 points, grabbed seven rebounds and blocked 11 shots as New Egypt (9-5) won its fifth game in its last six outings, 51- 37, over the neighboring Redbirds as the Allentown Win was Personal for Hubert (Tri-Town News).

An assistant coach from Seton Hall was in the seats to watch Hubert, who averages 15 points, 10 rebounds and eight blocks a game this season. Maryland was at a recent game and Temple has been out a couple times to see him as well.

Other schools that have shown interest in Hubert are Penn State, Villanova, Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh. Hubert was at the Prudential Center in Newark (NJ) for Seton Hall’s victory over Pittsburgh last Sunday.

Hubert runs with the NJ Playaz AAU program in the spring and summer.
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