Posted: March 12th, 2009 - by: MountaineerBob

Big East Tournament: Round 2 Roundup

Another great day in NYC day for the Big East Tournament.

The first game of the day was DePaul vs. Providence. The Friars looked like they were going to get their butts handed to them pretty much the whole game yesterday but made an impressive surge and hardcore defense to get back into it and pull out the win. If you look at the final score you’d never know they almost blew it!

The next game in the 2nd Round was St. John’s vs. Marquette. Marquette just stomped all over St. John’s winning 74-45. They held St. Johns to only 10 points in the first half! That is the lowest half time score by any team in a Big East Tourney Game. OUCH!

At 7pm yesterday WVU took on Notre Dame. We’ve had a tough time with them lately and I’ll admit I was a bit nervous going into this one. I knew we needed at least one win in the Big East Tournament to get in the #5 – #7 seed range for the NCAA Tournament. So a win here was critical.

I didn’t get to watch the first half of this game but when I turned on ESPN at halftime the score was ND 18 – WVU 36!  So it was our game to lose going into the 2nd half… and we almost did! Notre Dame went on a 19-9 run at one point and they closed into within 8 points with 2:27 left but it wasn’t enough and we held them off to win by 12, 62-74.

Stat of the Day: WVU improved to 11-5 in it’s last 16 games at MSG. Here are the highlights:

The last game of the night in NYC was Seton Hall vs. Syracuse. The Orange won by 15, 74-89. I didn’t really feel Seton Hall had a chance in this game cause the ‘Cuse are looking strong this year and when Seton Hall’s coach says this…

“There were some stretches in the game where the game got away from us,” Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez said. “They can hurt you a lot of ways. They are murder in transition and Jonny Flynn is almost unguardable.”

.. you got no chance.

Now onto Round 3… where the the big dogs get into the fight!

@ Noon on ESPN: Louisville vs. Providence (MountaineerBob predicts Louisville)
@ 2:30 on ESPN: Marquette vs. Villanova (MountaineerBob picks Marquettes defense)
@ 7pm on ESPN: THE BACKYARD BRAWL WVU vs. PITT (MountaineerBob picks WVU and Rouffs 3’s)
@ 9:30 on ESPN: UCONN vs. Syracuse (MountaineerBob picks UCONN)

TAG(s):    CAT(s): Basketball Big East