Pittsburgh Goes Down

#20 Louisville 69, #1 Pittsburgh 63
I don't want to make too much out of this result. Even the most biased Pittsburgh fan probably would have admitted that they weren't going to go undefeated in the Big East. At 4-1 in conference play they are still very much in a battle with Georgetown and UConn for the regular season title (with some possible sleepers that I'll get to in a moment). Louisville has really played well over the last week or so, and they got a ton of energy from the crowd at Freedom Hall last night. Every time they fell behind it felt like the crowd dragged them back into the game. After Pitt got off to a lightning quick start, Louisville responded with a 22-6 run late in the first half. Then when Pitt pushed the lead back to ten with a little under nine minutes to go, Louisville closed the game with a 24-8 run. That said, one of those Big East sleepers must be Louisville, right? They are now 4-0 in conference play with a home victory over Notre Dame and a road victory at Villanova to go with this huge win. Still, it's all mental with this team, as they're no more talented than they were when they were underachieving in mid-to-late December. Rick Pitino's teams are famous for starting slow, though, so I think they're here to stay among the Big East elite.

#14 Marquette 91, Providence 82
Speaking of sleepers for the Big East title, guess which team is currently leading the conference with a 5-0 record? Yep, Marquette. I have to say that it's extremely pleasurable to watch this team play, and I was entranced watching them come back over the final fifteen minutes of this game. Buzz Williams must be the luckiest coach in the country walking into a job where he gets Dominic James, Wes Matthews and Jerel McNeal, who have started all four years together and are clearly very good friends with great chemistry. Throw in Lazar Hayward and that's four great players, even if the rest of the team really isn't that good. I don't think either of those four players sat any of the last fifteen minutes of the game, and I don't think Williams was really doing much coaching either. He just let his stars win this game by doing all of the little things right. If you want to know why this game was so wonderful to watch, I want to give you a stat that will blow you away. Between the 19:45 and 1:45 in the second half Providence shot 11-for-13 (85%) from the field and went from a five point lead to a three point deficit. That is unbelievable. How do you shoot 85% from the field over an 18 minute stretch of game time and get outscored by eight points? Marquette has got to be a sleeper to steal the Big East title. Meanwhile, as well as Providence has been playing of late, I just don't see a route to the Tournament for them. They should head to the NIT and will be a dangerous team next year. Keno Davis is doing a good job with these guys. He just picked a terrible year to coach his first season in the Big East.

Stanford 75, #23 California 69
A bit of a surprising result as Stanford seemed to be fading while Cal had jumped out to a 4-0 record in Pac-10 play. I think this was a case of a team up against the wall coming out highly motivated and just beating a team that probably had less at stake. A loss here would have dropped Stanford to a very bleak 1-4 Pac-10 record. A 2-3 record looks so much nicer, and the Cardinal also collect what is only their third win over the RPI Top 100. With the weak strength of schedule, I think Stanford needs to get to 10-8 to earn an at-large bid, which makes the upcoming home games against Oregon and Oregon State essential. They need to sweep those to get ahead of pace before they follow that up with a road trip to USC and UCLA. Despite the loss, California is still tied for the conference lead at 4-1, and they also still have the highest RPI (16th). They are also 15-3 with a very good 6-3 record against the RPI Top 100. With a few good scalps already (Utah and Arizona State, among several others), Cal probably would still get in the Tournament at 9-9. And with the 4-1 start and the schedule remaining, I don't see them winning less than ten Pac-10 games. So they're still a very likely Tournament team, despite this tough loss.