Big East Tourney

Unfortunately, I did not get to watch the Bearcats' exciting win over Georgetown yesterday. I was stuck at work watching the live updates while pretending to actually be doing something constructive. Of course that pretending goes out the window with every excited fist pump after each time the Bearcats took the lead. The excitement isn't quite like watching live, but I was sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for every single update.

Anyways, looking at the stats it isn't exactly clear how the Cats were able to pull off the win. They shot terribly and patricularly struggled from 3. That is usually not a good sign with this team. Also, they allowed Georgetown to shoot 48%, so they weren't exactly playing shut down defense. UC basically just had more possesions. They had 10 more shot attempts and 6 more free throw attempts than the Hoyas, which means they had 13 more possessions. So even though UC only shot 38%, they were able to stay in the game. It seems this team always is able to stay in games, but never in exactly the same fashion. Sometimes they hit a bunch of threes, and sometimes they cause a lot of turnovers. It just seems like they will fight and claw their way to the end and hope to have a shot then.

Looking ahead to Syracuse, UC will certainly need to figure out a way to bust the zone. In the first game, Cashmere Wright was hitting 3's from anywhere and that kept them in the game. Inevitably, the Cats were going to start missing the bombs and they weren't able to compensate for that with easy buckets or any inside looks. Syracuse has only lost 1 game for a reason, so it will take a pretty good shooting night, and Yancy Gates and Justin Jackson will need to swarm the offensive rebounds to create extra opportunities. Also, UC will have to play exceptional defense. If they can somehow get this game a Big East title game awaits. Not many people would have expected the chance at that about 2 months ago.