Gonzaga Ends St. John’s Season
// DENVER (AP) -- That
WASHINGTON, D.C. –– With 11 Big East teams in the Big Dance, it was only a matter of time before two of them squared off.
Now the tournament will get its first All-Big East matchup after No. 6 Cincinnati routed No. 11 Missouri, 78-63, in a second round Southeast Regional game before 17,706 at the Verizon Center.
The Bearcats (26-8) will face No. 3 UConn (27-9) Saturday night at approximately 9:40 p.m. No. 1 Pitt will face No. 8 Bucknell at 7:10.
Three of the four teams remaining here are from the Big East.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Roscoe Smith spent the afternoon in his hotel room watching Louisville get upset by Morehead State and Kentucky nearly get taken out by Princeton.
“That’s what happens when you don’t have the mindset and the determination of going hard,” Smith said.
Smith and No. 3 UConn were determined not to get bitten by the upset bug, and they succeeded by annihilating No. 14 Bucknell, 81-52, in a second-round West Regional game at the Verizon Center.
Kemba Walker (18 points), Smith (17) and Jeremy Lamb (16) combined for 51 points as UConn moved ahead to face No. 6 Cincinnati, a 78-63 winner over No. 11 Missouri in the late game
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Ben McLemore will announce
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ashton Gibbs didn’t go Joe Namath and guarantee a Final Four appearance.
But he does believe this is the Panthers’ year to finally break through.
Pitt, the No. 1 seed in the West Regional, took the first step toward the school’s first Final Four since 1941 by dispatching No. 16 UNC-Asheville, 74-51, at the Verizon Center.
“I’m very confident,” said Gibbs, who scored 20 of his game-high 26 in the second half. “We’ve just got to take one game at a time. If we do that we’ll be fine.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said Kyrie Irving will play Friday in the Blue Devils’ NCAA tournament opener against Hampton in Charlotte, N.C.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Krzyzewski said Irving will not start and will play “limited minutes” when the No. 1 seeded Blue Devils meet the 16th-seeded Pirates.
The West Orange, N.J. native has been out since Dec. 4 with an injured big toe on his right foot.
Irving said he’s 95 percent healthy and “the other 5 percent will come when I actually play out there.”
Grant Hill has struck back at Jalen Rose.
Rose called Hill and his former Duke teammates “Uncle Toms” in an ESPN documentary Sunday on the “Fab Five” early 1990s Michigan team.
“I am a fan, friend and longtime competitor of the Fab Five,” Hill, now with the Phoenix Suns, wrote in Wednesday’s New York Times.
“It was a sad and somewhat pathetic turn of events, therefore, to see friends narrating this interesting documentary about their moment in time and calling me a bitch and worse, calling all black players at Duke ‘Uncle Toms’
