NEW YORK – The quarterfinals are up next in the Big East Tournament. In the second round, we saw Cincinnati blitz Providence early and fend off a rally, Syracuse rally from an early deficit due to a hot shooting Seton Hall team with a very strong second half, Villanova knock off a young St. John’s team and Notre Dame pull away from Rutgers and then hold them off. The four winners take on the top four seeds on Thursday.
Some quick hitters from Wednesday:
- Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin said a big goal was to play smaller and faster, and it certainly worked against Providence. They sped the Friars up and forced a lot of misses, and Cronin also feels like that’s a better way for them to play.”Make it a faster game,” said Cronin. “Make it a full-court game, and hopefully it will play in our favor. If you slug it out, it’s going to be 50-48, and we’ve lost six Big East games in the last minute.”
- Syracuse sophomore Michael Carter-Williams tied a Big East Tournament record with 14 assists while only turning the ball over once. Three others have done it: Mark Jackson (St. John’s) against Villanova in 1986, Dwayne Washington (Syracuse) a day later against Jackson and St. John’s, and Brandon Knight (Pittsbugh) against Miami in 2002.
- Seton Hall scored 46 points in 45 minutes on Tuesday and won. The Pirates needed a little over 26 minutes on Wednesday to reach that total and lost.
- St. John’s is a tough matchup for some teams with their length and athleticism. The problem is that they struggle in the halfcourt, mainly because they’re a bad jump shooting team. When they can get to the basket, they can finish, but jump shooting is another story and a big reason that even with D’Angelo Harrison they need the pace to be faster.
- St. John’s freshman Felix Balamou needed to be helped off the court in the first half. According to sports information director Mark Fratto, Balamou sprained his left ankle.
- Villanova got a big game from Mouphtaou Yarou at a good time on Wednesday, as he scored 18 points on 9-10 shooting and had seven rebounds. The senior has been a steady post player when healthy over his career, but this might have been his best offensive outing even though it wasn’t a season or career high scoring total. The main reason he was the go-to guy on the evening was St. John’s defensive strategy.”Most people take it away from us, but they really took our guards away from us tonight, and they kind of made a decision we’re going to make him beat us, which is not a bad game plan,” said head coach Jay Wright.
- The key stat of the last game that will leap out at you is Notre Dame going 10-17 on three-pointers. They didn’t have an overwhelming edge in any other statistic, but it was a more convincing win than the final score of 69-61 would indicate.
- Pat Connaughton came up big in the second half for Notre Dame, getting baskets at crucial junctures for them. His game-high 21 points will grab attention for obvious reasons, but when he scored some of them in the second half was big. Rutgers had closed within 41-36 when he hit a three-pointer, then he hit another when Rutgers had closed within 49-43, and later put them up 59-49 with another from deep.”The one thing about Pat that’s been something that is a trait of his is, when the lights are the brightest and the stakes are really high, he’s really, really good,” said head coach Mike Brey. “He’s such a gamer.”
