Cincinnati News, Connecticut News, Louisville Recruiting, Notre Dame News, Pittsburgh News, Rutgers Recruiting, Seton Hall Recruiting, St. John's Recruiting, Syracuse News, USF News, Villanova News, West Virginia News

BIG EAST NEWS & NOTES (2/8/2010)

*********Follow NBE Sports on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NBESports*****

A busy and snowy weekend in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic is over and the basketball action of Rivalry Week will likely help thaw things out. Before the week got started, there were a pair of Big East match-ups on Super Bowl Sunday and Notre Dame cooled off the red hot USF Bulls and Syracuse laid claim to the top spot in the conference by winning at Cincinnati.

Tonight is a big one as West Virginia welcomes in Villanova for a BIG Monday match-up. Pittsburgh is also in action taking on a local non-conference rival.

In other news, UConn is still looking at a chance to make the NCAA Tournament but it will take some impressive wins in the near future. The opportunity is definitely there. Rutgers will have a big recruiting visit in the near future and Jabarie Hinds could be the next Mount Vernon product to land in the Big East.

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…

—————

SUNDAY’S BIG EAST GAMES:

Notre Dame 65, South Florida 62

Notre Dame was able to cool off the red-hot Dominique Jones and his South Florida teammates with a 65-62 win over the Bulls at Purcell Pavilion in South Bend (IN) on Saunday afternoon.

The Irish Hold off USF, 65-62 (South Bend Tribune), as senior Tory Jackson made the big plays offensively and defensively all game. Jackson scored a season-high 18 points and was the only ND player to score from the field over the last 8:12. On the defensive end, he took the assignment to cover Jones in the second half and the USF star guard finished with 10 points, less than half his average, on three of 17 shooting from the field. With Luke Harangody struggling to find a grove offensively, Jackson Becomes ND’s Leading Man Down the Stretch (South Bend Tribune).

Harangody finished with 19 points and 15 rebounds, both team-highs, and his school record 63rd career double-double, but was only five of 17 from the field. The Irish senior big man was eight of eight from the foul line and two makes with under four seconds left iced the game for the Irish.

The Irish led by as many as 15 in the first half, 25-10, but the Bulls came back to tie the score (34-all) by halftime and led by as many as six points after intermission. However, the USF Rally Falls Short versus Notre Dame (St. Pete Times) and their best ever Big East win streak of four games is ended.

The loss drops South Florida to 5-6 in the Big East and 15-8 overall. Chris Howard scored 23 points and Jarrid Famous added 18 for the Bulls. USF is now off until a road game this coming Saturday against Marquette and they will hope to have forward Augustus Gilchrist back in the line-up when facing MU’s athletic and versatile front court duo of Jimmy Butler and Lazar Hayward.

After losing four of five, Notre Dame has rallied to win two straight at home to improve to 6-5 in the Big East and 17-7 overall. They will hit the road on Thursday to take on Seton Hall at the Prudential Center in Newark (NJ).
————————————–

Cincinnati used a 13-2 run to give them a 49-43 lead over No. 3 Syracuse with 12:25 to go on Sunday afternoon at Fifth Third Arena in a Big East conference match-up.

From there it was all Orange as No. 3 Syracuse Escapes UC Upset Bid (Cincinnati Enquirer) by finishing the game on a 28-5 run, limiting the Bearcats to just one field goal over the last 12+ minutes, for a 71-54 victory.

Kris Joseph Nails Two Key Three-Pointers (Syracuse Post-Standard) in the game’s final 10 minutes as the sophomore forward stepped up once again, scoring 17 points off the bench and helping SU to overcome a tough day from star junior forward Wesley Johnson (5 points).

Andy Rautins led the Orange with 20 points, but it was the Syracuse Defense Discouraging Cincinnati (Post-Standard) all game, but especially over the game’s final quarter, and the size and length of the SU 2-3 zone had the Bearcats struggling to cope against it.

The win has Syracuse currently sitting by themselves atop the Big East standings with a league record of 10-1. It was their 10th straight win, pushing their overal record to 23-1, the school’s best ever mark after 24 games in a season.

Scoop Jardine added 11 points and 6 assists while Arinze Onuake also reached double figures, scoring 11. On Wednesday, Syracuse will welcome rival Connecticut to the Carrier Dome for a ‘Rivalry Week’ match-up.

It was a disappointing defeat for Cincinnati as the Bearcats fall to 5-6 in the Big East and 14-9 overall. The Bearcats are off until Saturday when they begin a two-game road trip that will take them to Connecticut (2/13) and South Florida (2/16). With a rotation and line-up that always seems to be changing game-by-game, UC head coach Mick Cronin is Still Trying to Fight the Pieces Together (Cincinnati Enquirer) on his team. With it being mid Febriary when they take the court again, he better complete the puzzle again or their high hopes for the season could be extinguished. Remember, UC has a finishing stretch of at No. 6 West Virginia, vs. No. 2 Villanova and at No. 7 Georgetown to close the regular season.
——————————————————————————————–

MONDAY’S BIG EAST GAMES:

Villanova (9-1) at West Virginia (8-2), 7 PM.

–Nova Can Bounce Right Back (Delaware County Times)
–WVU Ready for Monster Match-up (Times West Virginian)
–WVU-Nova No Ordinary Regular Season Game (Times West Virginian)
–Villanova Faces West Virginia (Philadelphia Inquirer)
–Mountaineers Can’t Survive on Resiliency Alone (Daily Mail)
–Butler, WVU Seek Repeat of 2009 vs. Nova (Daily Mail)
–WVU Takes Extra Security Measures for Villanova Game (Daily Mail)
–Bulked Up Jones Making an Impact at WVU (SNY.tv)

The snowstorm that blanketed the Mid-Atlantic is still causing closings and delays in the region as transportation remains tough. WVU is closed today, but inside the Coliseum there will still be basketball. The tough conditions in the region is likely to thin out the raucous Mountaineer faithful in the stands, but it stil should be a healthy atmosphere.

The Wildcats are coming off their first conference loss as they ran into a blizzard, inside and outside of the Verizon Center, Saturday against Georgetown. The Mountaineers avoided a ‘sandwich game’ let down by dismantling St. John’s on the road after halftime in Madison Square Garden. The match-up of top 10 teams will kick off ESPN’s Rivalry Week with a doozy for Big Monday.
————————————

Robert Morris at Pittsburgh, 8 PM.

–Colonials Hope Winning Streak Stands Against Panthers (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
–For Colonials, Timing is Everything (Post-Gazette)

It must be Rivalry Week when former Pitt assistant Mike Rice and his Robert Morris club takes on Pitt. OK, not really, but this is a step out of the conference for the Panthers who have their rival rival, West Virginia, coming to town for a Friday night ESPN game. Ahead of that, the Panthers will look to fine tune their game against a local rival.
——————————————————————————————–

ADDITIONAL BIG EAST NEWS & NOTES:

Jabarie Hinds could be the next in the line of Mount Vernon (NY) HS basketball players to end up in the Big East, following a list of Ben Gordon, Keith Benjamin, Mike Cobourn, Kevin Jones and Jonathan Mitchell. Of The Top Six Schools Recruiting Mount Vernon’s Hinds (ZagsBlog.com), the Big East is represented by Louisville, St. John’s and Seton Hall according to his high school coach Bob Cimmino.

Cimmino also told ZagsBlog.com that UNLV, Virginia and Wake Forest are involved with a href=”http://w3.nbebasketball.com/big-east-team-pages/seton-hall/”>Seton Hall having “done a lot of work” in the recruitment.

It looks like Hinds will begin to cut his list after the spring and summer AAU seasons as the 2011 point guard prospect could be in high demand among more schools by then.
———————————————————————————–

ZagsBlog.com also has the scoop that Andre Drummond Will Visit Rutgers unofficially for their game against UConn. The 6-foot-10, 270-lb sophomore is a top 5 recruit nationally and a native of Connecticut, now attending school at St. Thomas More. Rutgers has successfully recruited players out of STM previously, including Quincy Douby, and the perception of being involved with such an elite prospect might help cool the heat on embattled coach Fred Hill, at least that is what STM coach Jere Quinn indicates when talking with Zags in the article.
————————————————————————————-

At 4-6 in he Big East and 14-9 overall, this is hardly the season Connecticut was expecting this year. At one time ranked in the top 10, the Huskies did manage to snap a three-game losing streak over the weekend with a lackluster 64-57 win over DePaul. However, there is still a lot of basketball left and the UConn Men Still Have a Slight Chance (Register Citizen), starting with Wednesday’s rivalry showdown at No. 3 Syracuse, for some statement wins for the NCAA Tournament committee to take note of as the Huskies play three of their next five games against the top six teams in the nation.
—————————————————————————————–

Be Sociable, Share!

•