Big East Tournament Day 3

Tournament time has arrived, as thing are getting crazy in New York for The Big East Tournament. A controversial day 2 is one of the main headlines for day 3. Lets go game by game through day 3 in MSG.
#1 Pittsburgh vs #9 UConn: This game asks the question, is it better to be rested or on a roll? UConn is on a game roll of double-digit wins. Their best player is player the best he has all year(with the exception of the Mauii Invitational). All the other players are stepping up, Jeremy Lamb had a solid game yesterday, and Jamal Coombs-McDaniel had a solid game. But, Pittsburgh has the best all-around player in the country in Ashton Gibbs. The reason he does not spot 30 points every game is because the depth Pittsburgh has. They have so many different scoring outlets, and they are the most complete team in the country. I like them by double-digits because of their depth. The winner of this game plays the winner of Syracuse vs St. John's.
#4 Syracuse vs #5 St, John's: St. John's "stole" one from Rutgers among much controversy. Rutgers should have gotten a shot to win, but they did not and St. John's got lucky, like really lucky. So now they are playing the only team that has beaten them in The Garden. The Syracuse Orange. So the question is can St. Johns shoot well enough to beat Syracuse's zone. Dwight Hardy and DJ Kennedy need to find the range from deep. They are the keys to the game. I love St. John's. I love them even more at The Garden, but I have a feeling they will have a tough time figuring out Syracuse's zone, as they have in the past. I like The Orange.
The preview of the next 2 games is coming later.-Josh Neighbors

Big East Tournament Day 2

There are 3 major headlines coming into round 2 of The Big East tournament. 1: Kemba Walker looked really good yesterday, scoring 26 points as UConn cruised against Depaul. It did take a little while for UConn to kick it into gear, but they eventually did and won by 26. So the #9 seed Huskies will face #8 Georgetown. The Hoyas have been up and down, and are without Chris Wright. This means Austin Freeman will have to step up. But, I like Kemba Walker and UConn. The winner of this game faces # 1 seed Pittsburgh.

2: St, John's starts their Big East Tournament run. The odds are in their favor due to the fact that The Tournament is in MSG. The #5 seed Red Storm take on #13 seed Rutgers, who won an overtime thriller yesterday against Seton Hall. I like the Red Storm in this game and I do not think a tired Rutgers team can keep up. The winner platys #4 seed Syracuse.

3: The last big storyline is Villanova being knocked off by USF. This puts The Wildcats right on the bubble. #15 seed USF plays #7 Cincinati. Cincinati will have no problem with USF. The Bulls got lucky yesterday, and Villanova had no Corey Stokes. Bearcats will roll. The winner faces #2 seed Notre Dame.

The last game has #11 seed Marquette vs #6 West Virginia. I think this will be a good game. Marquette punched their ticket last night with a win over Providence. A win tonight would be nice to thought, but I like Bob Huggins and West Virginia. The winner of this game plays #3 Louisville.-Josh Neighbors

Ready to Run: Day 1 of the Big East Tournament

The Big East Tournament starts today. This is when we weed out the teams who come to New York with slight hope on Monday, and lose it on Tuesday. So on this Tuesday there are very few big story lines. The first matchup consists of #9 seed UConn vs #16 seed Depaul. I see the UConn having no problem what so ever with Depaul. The winner of that game gets Georgetown.
Next is the 12 13 matchup, which is Seton Hall vs Rutgers. This will be a tight game that nobody cares about. The winner of this game plays St. John's. Remember that, I will talk about The Johnie's later.
The Next matchup has #10 Villanove vs #15 USF. No problems here. The Cats will roll. Cincinati faces the winner.
The last matchup is by far the most intruiging. #11 Marquette  vs  #14 Providence. Marquette is playing for their tournament lives. They are the bubble team in The Big East. If the Big East sends 11 teams, Marquette will be the 11th.(Provided they do not win The Big East Tournament.) On the other side you have Marshon Brooks, who in my opinion is the 2nd most fun player to watch in the country. He and The Friars have a tendency to knock off teams. Even though they are 15-16, they go out and play hard in the toughest conference in the country. They usually do not get the W. But, they have knocked off Lousiville, Villanova, and came very close to beating Georgetown in DC. I think Marquette will prevail, but it will be a close game. Expect to see 30+ in the stat sheet next to Marshon Brooks name. The winner will face West Virginia.-Josh Neighbors

You Remember

Everyone remembers 2006. The year the #11 seed George Mason made an incredible tournament run to the final four, only to be beaten by eventual national champion Florida. Well this year George Mason could be looking at another deep run. But, this year it may not be a surprising run. The Patriots are (25-5) (16-2) in the CAA. They are currently riding a 16 game win streak heading into this weekend's CAA tournament. The most surprising thing about this team, is how quietly they have been going about doing this. George Mason does not really have a star player, they have many players who can step up any night. They play very solid team defense. Coach Jim Larranga deserves very high praise for leading a team with no star player, to such great success. I had the distinct pleasure of watching The Patriots play against VCU. They picked apart VCU's defense from inside and out, and held VCU's star players in check. I do not see them having any problems in their conference tournament, and I think they will make it to the sweet 16, at the least.-Josh Neighbors

Time To Dance

Last night the Virginia Tech Hokies solidified their tournament spot with a 64-60 win over #1 Duke, in what was arguably one of VT's top 5 most important games in program history. On this night it seemed The Hokies could not lose this game. Gameday, the fans, and Duke all set the bar for Virginia Tech and they rose to challenge and knocked off Duke. Virginia Tech is a team who always seems to find themselves on the bubble in late February into early March. They have been left out the last few years, but this is no more. Despite an off night from Malcolm Delaney, and terrible free throw shooting (39.1%) they got it done. Good teams always find a way to win, and that is what The Hokies did. All 5 starters scored in the double-digits, headlined by Jeff Allen's 18 points and 15 rebounds. Eric Green added 12 points, which included two and 1's that provided a spark. Victor Davilla had 11 points and 10 rebound, which was exactly what VT needed due to the lack of depth inside. Terrel Bell scored a dozen points, and had a key 3 with 4 minutes left, which tied up the game. Then there was Malcolm Delaney. He struggled the whole night, and was 0-5 on 3's until 2 minutes left in the game. Virginia Tech was clinging to a 2 point lead, and Malcolm Delaney stepped up and drained a 3 to extend Th Hokies lead. His 3 was part of Virginia Tech's 15-4 run in the last 4 minutes of play.
Duke's leading scorer was Kyle Singler, he had 22 points and 12 rebounds. Nolan Smith added 18 points. In a game that was supposed to be huge for Seth Curry, he was held scoreless annd fouled out. The Virginia Tech students harassed Curry with chants of "who's your daddy?", as VT former great Dell Curry, father of Seth, was in attendance. For Duke, this is a tiny bump in the road. They will rebound and get a #1 seed in the tournament. For Virginia Tech, this is a milestone win that speaks to the effort level of the short-handed Hokies this season.-Josh Neighbors

In or Out - Michigan State

Normally everyone is wondering, do you think Michigan State will make the final four? This year it is far from it, the question is do you think Michigan State will make the NCAA tournament. They were ranked #2 in the preseason polls and many people believed they would cut down the nets come April 6th. With the inability to beat equally good teams early in the season, there season began to spiral out of control. They were forced to suspend 6th man Korie Lucious because he violated team rules twice. With a 14-10 record they have to win. They have two big opportunities this week. First going on the road at #3 Ohio State and then hosting Illinois on their floor with gameday in the house. Beat Illinois and don't get run right out of the gym at OSU and they will be sitting pretty. They will also have two more opportunities when they play at Minnesota and play at home against Purdue. If they win two out of these four games and handle their business versus Iowa and Michigan they will go dancing.

Final prediction: MSU will beat Illinois and Purdue and make the NCAA Tournament. Once they are there they will be a threat to make deep tournament run

Connor Jones

Best of The Rest

\ It is early February, and it is time to start thinking about the NCAA tournament. This is what our guys live for. We love College Basketball, and making picks and predictions. But, I am going to talk about a possibility. This possibility may seem unreal. The Big East could potentially send 8 or 9 teams to the NCAA tournament. There are at least 7 teams that will be going for sure. Pittsburgh is (10-1) in conference, they are (22-2) overall. In my mind, they will be a #1 seed. Next you have Notre Dame (8-3) in the Big East, (19-4) overall. They will get over 20 wins, easy in. Villanova is 3rd in The Big East (7-3) in conference play, (19-4) overall. Another easy in. Syracuse is 5th in the conference, but they are the next obvious choice. They are (20-4) overall, and (7-4) in conference. Boeheim is looking at another trip to the big dance, as well as Rick Pitino. Cards are(18-5) overall and (7-3) in The Big East. Georgetown and UConn round out the obvious group of 7.
Now comes the hard part. 

The first team on the bubble is West Virginia. They are (15-8) overall and (6-5) in conference. They have 2 quality wins @ Georgetown, when they were #13, and against Purdue when the were #8. The Mountaineers may be out of luck though, out of their 7 remaining games, 5 are against ranked teams. 3 of them are against top 10 teams. There 2 non-ranked opponents are Depaul, and Rutgers. They need to get those wins, and at least 2 wins against the ranked opponents. They need to be over .500% in these last 7 games if they want a shot.
The next team on the bubble is The Cincinati Bearcats. They are (18-5) and (5-5) in The Big East. The problem is all of their conference wins have come against unranked teams. Cincinati has 4 ranked teams in their remaining 8 games. Only 1 of them is in the top 10.

Lastly on the bubble is Maquette. They are (14-9) and (5-5) in conference. They have 8 games remaining, they play only 2 ranked teams. The rest are against USF, St. Johns, Seton Hall twice, Providence, and Cincinati. Out of all these teams, I think Marquette has the best chance of making the big dance. They are well coached, the share the ball well, and they take very high quality shots. I think The Golden Eagles will round out the Big East pack on selection sunday.-Josh Neighbors