Tuesday Tidbits

Catching up on the latest headlines in Big East basketball…

1. Louisville Prevails at the ‘Cuse– The Cardinals got a much-needed road victory to enhance their NCAA Tournament resume. Louisville handed SU just its second loss of the season and improved to 7-5 in Big East play. Rick Pitino’s team closed the game strong and earned their best win to date in the process. While Syracuse is still in position to win the conference and earn a No. 1 seed, the Orange have not played well for the last few weeks. Syracuse was lucky to knock off Uconn last week and the Orange shot 41.4 percent against Louisville, including 26.3 percent from 3-point range and 63.6 percent fromt the free throw line. The Orange have a great chance to respond with a quality win, but a tough test awaits Thursday at Georgetown.
2. Scarlet Knights Shock Hoyas– In perhaps the biggest in-conference upset of the season to date (either this or Marquette losing at DePaul), Georgetown suffered its third head-scratching loss of the year. Rutgers’ Jonathan Mitchell was spectacular, scoring 24 points on 9-of-12 shooting. The Hoyas shot over 50 percent from the field, but a combination of 14 turnovers, 10 free throw attempts and four 3-pointers led to a fifth conference loss.
3. UConn Responds to Calhoun’s Criticism– After an “embarrassing” performance in Saturday’s loss to Cincinnati, the Connecticut Huskies responded with their best win of the season at Villanova. UConn point guard Kemba Walker had one of the best performances of the season, finishing with 29 points nine rebounds a pair of steals. Walker’s backcourt mate, Jerome Dyson, had 15 points five rebounds and six assists, and the Huskies played with tremendous passion and energy in a road victory that keeps slim NCAA Tournament hopes alive. Meanwhile, Villanova failed to take advantage of Syracuse’s loss a day earlier and moved back into a tie with the Orange for first place.

While these were all surprises, these uispsets shouldn’t shock people the way they have. The Big East is the most superior conference in the country and by far the deepest. Even the top teams in this league are going to get beat from time-to-time, and the fact that two of them happened to lose to Louisville and Connecticut may not be as major of an upset as some believe. The Cardinals and Huskies both had high expectations entering this season but have disappointed for the most part to this point. However, Louisville has played much better recently with the exception of last week’s loss at St. John’s, and UConn has the talent and height to compete with good teams. The Huskies finally won their first road game and now must avoid being upset this weekend at Rugers, like Georgetown was.