Louisville Defeats Duke

Louisville rallied to beat Duke after their teammate, Demarcus Ware, left the game after a horrific broken leg.

The Cardinals’ head coach Rick Pitino said this after the game:

“We won this for him. We were all choked up with emotion for him. We’ll get him back to normal. We’ve got great doctors, great trainers.”

Louisville’s Russ Smith scored 23 points and Gorgui Dieng had 14 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks.

Duke played Louisville hard until the injury timeout. Russ Smith led the Cardinals on a 12-6 run to finish the half with a 35-32 lead. Smith started the second half right where he left off. He made all three of his free throws. Peyton Siva then hit a nice jumper to start another run for the Cardinals. That 20-4 run sealed the win for Louisville to move onto the Final Four in Atlanta.

Syracuse Defeats Marquette

Syracuse defeated Marquette to move onto the Final Four in Atlanta. Marquette looked flat through out the game and let Syracuse’s defense dominate them.

Marquette only managed to score 39 points in this game. They only shot 23%. They went long stretched without scoring and they couldn’t get a shot to drop.

There was a star studded crowd at this game. President Barack Obama and Redskin’s quarterback Robert Griffin III were in attendance.

Syracuse heads to Atlanta for the Final Four.

No. 3 Marquette Defeats No. 2 Miami

You can read a recap on my site here.

No. 4 Syracuse Defeats No. 1 Indiana

Syracuse defeated Indiana 61-50 last night to move onto the Elite 8.

Indiana did not look like a number 1 team. They missed layups, threw passes out of bounds and dribbled into defenders. They shot 33.3% from the field and had 19 turnovers.

Syracuse’s sophomore guard led the team with 24 points and five rebounds while Brandon Triche added 14 points.

The Orange move on to play Marquette, their Big East rival on Saturday,

The Sweet 16 gets under way tomorrow. Here is the your schedule for the remaining Big East Teams.

No. 3 Marquette vs No. 2 Miami, March 28, 6:15 pm CST

No. 4 Syracuse vs No. 1 Indiana, March 28, 8:45 pm CST

No. 1 Louisville vs No. 12 Oregon, March 29, 6:15 pm CST

Let’s hope they all fair well tomorrow and Friday.

No. 1 Louisville Defeated No. 8 Oregon

Louisville defeated Oregon, 82-56, to move onto the Sweet 16.

Louisville’s Russ Smith led the team with 27 points. Gorgui Dieng scored 12 points, Montrezl Harrell added 11 points and Peyton Siva had 10 points, five assists and three steals.

Louisville controlled this game  with their largest lead being 26.

No. 4 Syracuse Defeated No. 10 California

Syracuse defeated California, 66-60, to move onto the Sweet 16.

Syracuse led most of the game at times by as many as 12 points. California managed to get within six in the final minutes of the game but it was not close enough.

Syracuse’s C.J. Fair led with 18 points, James Southerland has 14 points, Carter-Williams added 12 points and Baye Moussa Keita 11 points.

No. 3 Marquette Defeated No. 6 Butler

You can read a recap of this game on my site here.

Here is your Big East recap from yesterday’s NCAA Tournament games.

No. 1 Louisville defeated No. 16 North Carolina A&T

The overall no. 1 seed Louisville defeated no. 16 North Carolina A&T, 79-48.

Louisville forced a season high 20 steals, forced 27 turnovers, and had 67 deflections. Russ Smith had 23 points in the game.

There was no question that Louisville was going to win this game. They came out strong and stayed strong the whole game.

No. 8 Pittsburgh Falls to No. 9 Wichita St.

Pittsburgh lost to Wichita St., 73-55.

Steve Adams led Pittsburgh with 13 points and 11 rebounds. As a team, the Panthers shot 35% from the field and were 1 for 17 from 3 point range.

Wichita State Malcolm Armstead with 22 points. Cleanthony Early added 19 for the Shockers.

Wichita State was on fired during the game. They built up a 16 point lead with five minutes to go in the second half and Pitt could not make up the deficit.

No. 4 Syracuse defeats No. 13 Montana

Syracuse defeated Montana, 81-34. This was pretty much one of those no contest games.

Syracuse’s Brandon Triche scored 20 points and C.J. Fair had 13 points.

Here are Syracuse’s Brandon Triche’s thoughts on the game:

”We knew that we were favored a little bit in this game and as far as our talent level. So we wanted to not give a team like that a confidence in thinking that they can win the game. C.J. did a great job for us starting the game off with the first six points or so. He had a mismatch and we tried to go to him early. He kind of jump started us.”

Syracuse led by 23 points at halftime and piled on more in the second half with a 17-2 run to open the half. They blew Montana out of the water in one of the most lopsided NCAA Tournament victories.

No. 3 Marquette defeated No. 14 Davidson

You can read a full recap on my site here.

It’s tournament time! The Big East have 8 teams in the NCAA Tournament and here are the match ups. All times are CST.

Midwest Region

No. 1 Louisville vs No. 16 North Carolina A&T, Thursday 5:50 pm

No. 7 Creighton vs No. 10 Cincinnati, Friday 1:45 pm

West Region

No. 8 Pittsburgh vs No. 9 Wichita St., Thursday 12:40 pm

No. 7 Notre Dame vs No. 10 Iowa St., Friday 8:45 pm

South Region

No. 8 North Carolina vs No. 9 Villanova, Friday 6:20 pm

No. 2 Georgetown vs No. 15 FGCU, Friday 5:50 pm

East Region

No. 4 Syracuse vs No. 13 Montana, Thursday 8:57 pm

No. 3 Marquette vs No. 14 Davidson, Thursday 2:10 pm

Stay tuned for more coverage here.

Louisville rallies to beat Syracuse, 78-61, to become the Big East Champions.

Louisville overcame a 16 point deficit to defeat Syracuse for the championship. They kept going until they had at one point an 18 point lead.

Louisville went in the half down 35-22 to Syracuse. The Cardinals not only made up the deficit  they ended up blowing the Orange out of the water. With just over two minutes to go in the second half, Louisville was up 73-55 when Syracuse went on a 10 point run. The Cardinals would not let them get any closer than that as they shut them down defensively to win.

Louisville’s Montrezl Harrell had 20 points while Russ Smith and Luke Hancock both scored 10 points. Gorgui Dieng had nine points, nine rebounds and eight assists in the game.

Syracuse’s C.J. Fair had 21 points, Michael Carter-Williams had 11 points and nine assists and Brandon Triche added 10 points.

Peyton Siva was selected as MVP of the Big East Tournament. He had had 11 points and eight assists in the game.

Syracuse 58, Georgetown 55

Syracuse upset Georgetown in overtime 58-55. The Orange led for most of the game but the Hoyas fought back late in the second to end the game in a tie. Syracuse was able to stay ahead in overtime to win the game.

Syracuse’s Baye Keita, Brandon Triche and James Southerland each scored 13 points.

Georgetown’s  Mikael Hopkins had 15 points and eight rebounds.

Syracuse moves on to the Big East Championship.

Louisville 69, Notre Dame 57

Louisville dominated Notre Dame to move on to the Big East Championship.

Louisville’s Russ Smith had 20 points and six assists while Peyton Siva scored 12 points and had seven steals.

Notre Dame’s  Jack Cooley and Jerian Grant scored 14 points each.

Syracuse faces Louisville in the Big East Championship tonight at 8:30 pm EST on ESPN.

Georgetown 62, Cincinnati 43

Georgetown defeated Cincinnati on Thursday. The Hoyas led for most of the game but gave away a 16-point lead to the Bearcats but rallied with their defense

Otto Porter scored 18 points for Georgetown. Markel Starks had 14 points and D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera added 13 points  off the bench.

Cincinnati’s Cashmere Wright scored 14 points.

Syracuse 62, Pittsburgh 59

Syracuse is headed to the Big East Tournament semifinals after defeating Pittsburgh.

The pair of runs that Syracuse went on during the game were definitely the turning point for them. They went on a 10-point run midway through the first half including a pair of three pointers by James Southerland. The Orange had another round later in the first half which was capped off by CJ Fair’s three pointer.

James Southerland scored 20 points for Syracuse. C.J. Fair added 13 points and seven rebounds, Brandon Triche had 12 points. Michael Carter-Williams made 11 points, seven assists and six rebounds.

Pittsburgh’s Lamar Patterson had 14 points and 11 rebounds and Tray Woodall added 12 points. Talib Zanna and Robinson scored 10 points apiece.

Louisville 74, Villanova 55

Louisville defeated Villanova to move onto the Big East Tournament semifinals.

The Cardinals controlled this game. The closest the Wildcats came was within three points but then Louisville shut them down.

Louisville’s Russ Smith score 28 points with Luke Hancock adding 12 points and Peyton Siva adding 10.

Villanova’s JayVaughn Pinkston scored 21 points. Mouphtaou Yarou had 13 points and 11 rebounds.

Notre Dame 73, Marquette 65

You can read a full recap of this game on my site here.

Semifinals Schedule

Here is your schedule for this evenings games. All times are in EST and can be seen on ESPN.

Georgetown vs Syracuse, 7 pm

Louisville vs Notre Dame, 9:30 pm

Last year’s draft was all about a shallow pool of players, international picks and Kentucky. This year, Kentucky was still a factor, but that was the only similarity. The draft is always fun to watch, but this year seemed a little uneventful.

The themes of the first round last night were North Carolina, Kentucky and gingham. That’s right, gingham. Overall, the suits were disappointingly muted, with the only semi-oddball being Terrence Ross from Washington in his green bow tie (see below). But a huge number of next year’s NBA rookies were wearing some form of gingham.

The night began with a video of the top picks climbing up a ladder in their suits, I guess that’s supposed to be inspiring? David Stern then emerged from backstage (what’s back there anyway?), and was promptly booed, as per usual.

No surprise to anyone: Anthony Davis and his now trademarked unibrow were picked first by the New Orleans Hornets. As Davis headed to the stage, our commentators Jay Bilas, Jeff Van Gundy, Chris Broussard and Rece Davis spent a moment to discuss how big men No. 1 picks have had trouble in the league due to injuries, citing Yao Ming and Greg Oden.

Davis is the first No. 1 pick since Kareem Abdul Jabbar to also be the AP National Player of the Year and play for the National Championship team. Along with his eyebrow, Davis sported a striped shirt and – you guessed it – a gingham tie.

Michael Kidd-Gilchrest from Kentucky goes No. 2 to the Charlotte Bobcats. This is the first time any school has gone one and two in the draft, and the first time the first two players sported a form of gingham.

» Continue reading “The Unibrow™ Picked First – And Other 2012 NBA Draft Shockers”