darn Dukie
This has been a season of peaks and valleys for Marquette. After dropping its first two Big East games, the Golden Eagles reeled off eighth-straight, including a three-point win at Pittsburgh on Jan. 21. Now, however, they have lost four of their last five, most notably a heartbreaking home defeat to Louisville on a buzzer-beating three-pointer by the Cardinals' Jerry Smith. Marquette's D has been underwhelming during this bad stretch; the Eagles have averaged just 6.0 steals in the four losses. That's a problem for a team that does not score easily in the half-court. Meanwhile, junior forward Ousmane Barro, who had 12 points and seven rebounds in Marquette's earlier win at Pitt, has averaged just 3.8 points in his last four games. Pittsburgh also seems to be lacking offensive firepower at times, but the Panthers had 24 assists on 29 made field goals in Monday's thrashing of West Virginia. I'm sure Marquette will be pumped up in front of its home crowd, but I still think Pitt is the better team.
Pittsburgh 74, Marquette 70
Pitt has more to play for tomorrow (a undisbuted BE Championship----if GT loses to UCONN----or a tie if GT beats UCONN ---more likely)------but hopefully a whole week has given MU a chance to regroup and refresh (a few days off ?)-----anyway the key to the game will be creating TOs andtaking advantage of gray switching on DJ coming over a screen set by Barro----we have capotalized on this in the past----but the opportunity is there to to make even more hay (in BB parlance-----that's a mismatch)!
I beg to differ. We have just as much to play for tomorrow. We have lost four out of our last five. In addition, while I think we are a lock for the NCAA, you never want to put the decision in anyone else's hand so I believe the team will be playing for a NCAA berth, imagined or not. Against ND, it was evident that TC was desperate for a win as I don't remember a time when we were as fired up at a start of a game as we were against them.
But that was one of the problems against ND-----we were all fired up for the beginning of the game----TOO fired up------no way were we going to maintain that level of motivation for a whole game.
It's great to be "fired up"----but please understand that it's a 40 minute game!
Seth Davis predicted a loss at Pitt the first time. He then predicted it agian right before tip. He also at half-time in the studio said Pitt would still win. He was wrong on all counts.
Tell me again... why do you care so much what Seth Davis thinks?????
Great win tonight!!!!