• Notre Dame earned its first conference road win on Saturday, defeating Villanova 90-80. Kyle McAlarney led the Irish with 30 points; Freshman Antonio Pena led the Wildcats with 18 points and nine rebounds, but he couldn’t keep Villanova from falling to 3-4 in conference play.
• Rutgers stunned Pittsburgh, using a 45 point second half to beat the Panthers 77-63. Corey Chandler had 18 points as the Knights won only their second conference game and first on the road.
• Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun suspended two players before his team’s game against #8 Indiana. Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins were suspended indefinitely, but the Huskies were still able to pull off the improbable upset, beating the Hoosiers 68-63. Craig Austrie picked up the slack for his suspended teammates, scoring 15 points, including six critical free throws down the stretch.
• Providence lost its second straight conference game, falling to a short-handed Syracuse side 71-64. Scoop Jardine was suspended indefinitely by Jim Boeheim, but the Orange were still able to defeat the Friars, who drop to 3-4 in conference action.

• Syracuse fell to 3-3 in conference play on Saturday, losing at home to the Villanova Wildcats. A 23-point effort by Cuse freshman Jonny Flynn was not enough to propel his side to victory, as the Orange fall to .500 in the conference.
• Marquette dropped another conference game on Sunday, as the Golden Eagles were blown out again, this time at the hands of the Connecticut Huskies. Earlier in the week, Louisville put the hurt on Marquette, beating them 71-51.
• Louisville could not ride the momentum of their mid-week win over Marquette, as Seton Hall pulled off a surprising upset. In a questionable coaching decision, Coach Pitino’s side elected to rely on three-pointers instead of the easy two as they attempted to catch up in the final throes. But, as the Hall went a paltry 4-12 from the stripe in the final two minutes of the game, Louisville may have been better served to take the twos, especially since they missed all five of their three-point attempts in that same two minutes.
• That Louisville loss meant that, for the second week in a row, the Georgetown Hoyas will sit alone atop the Big East standings. With a win in tonight’s Syracuse matchup, the Hoyas can move a full game ahead of the rest of the conference.

• Marquette blew out Notre Dame, 92-66. Luke Harangody’s 29 points and 14 rebounds were not enough to save Notre Dame from its first conference loss. That loss means that Georgetown is the lone undefeated team in Big East conference play.
• Cincinnati edged Villanova by three, 69-66, to give them their second win this week. Earlier, they beat Syracuse, and they now have a 3-1 record in the conference, tied for second with DePaul and Marquette.
• Louisville beat Rutgers 64-49 to keep the Scarlet Knights winless in Big East play. Seton Hall is the only other team without a conference win.

The Big East season got underway this weekend, with plenty of action.

• Villanova narrowly edged Pittsburgh to avoid an 0-2 start, squeaking by with a score of 64-63. The Panthers had a chance to win it at the end, but Ronald Ramon lost the ball, and the Wildcats hung on for the victory.
• West Virginia upset #10 Marquette, beating them 79-64 in Morgantown. The Mountaineers’ Alex Rouff and Joe Alexander both scored 19 to lead West Virginia to victory.
• Notre Dame held off the University of Connecticut to improve to 2-0 in conference play. The Huskies rallied from 21 down to take a one point lead late in the half but ran out of gas, falling 73-67. Kyle McAlarney’s ended the game with 32 points and was 6-7 from downtown.
• 12 of the 16 Big East teams have already suffered a conference loss. Georgetown, along with Notre Dame, DePaul, and Syracuse, are the four remaining unbeatens.

• The Dayton Flyers crushed the Pittsburgh Panthers 80-55 on Saturday. The win makes Dayton 2-0 against Top 25 Big East opponents, having also beaten then-14th Louisville.
• Pittsburgh received more bad news over the weekend, starting junior guard Levance Fields broke his foot in the Panthers’ loss to Dayton, and he is out for as many as 12 weeks. The news comes barely a week after losing forward Mike Cook for the season due to an ACL tear.
• West Virginia lost a heartbreaker to Oklahoma, falling 88-82 in double overtime. The Mountaineer’s Alex Ruoff made a last-second put-back to force overtime, and they led by five points with 1:30 left in the first overtime, but couldn’t close it out. West Virginia drops it second of the year, its first at home.

• Pittsburgh senior Mike Cook is out for the rest of the season. Cook was injured in the first minute of overtime during Pitt’s victory over Duke.
• West Virginia Coach Bob Huggins won his 600th game with a 77-54 victory over Canisius. Huggins is the third current Big East coach to reach the landmark, joining Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim.

• Four teams in the Big East hit 100 points in games this past week as Georgetown beat Radford 110-51, Notre Dame beat Northern Illinois 108-62, Villanova beat Hartford 103-75, and Syracuse beat East Tennessee State 125-75. Syracuse shot 75.8% from the field in that game, but they also lost junior guard Eric Devendoorf for the season.
• Louisville lost to Purdue 67-59 on Saturday, putting them at 5-3 on the season. Starting out the season ranked #6, they’ve been hit hard by injuries and have fallen quite a bit in both polls. No other team who started the year in the preseason top 10 has lost more than one game.

• The Big East won three out of four games in the inaugural Pizza Hut Big East/SEC Invitational. Georgetown, West Virginia, and Villanova defeated Alabama, Auburn, and LSU, respectively. South Carolina helped the SEC avoid the sweep by defeating Providence.
• #14 Louisville lost to Dayton 70-65. The Flyers were led by Brian Roberts, who scored a game-high 28 points, including the game clinching free throw to give the Cardinals their second loss of the season.
• #11 Pittsburgh barely eked out Washington to remain perfect on the season. The Huskies appeared to make a game-winning shot as time expired, but after official review, the shot was ruled to be after the buzzer, and the Panthers escaped with a 75-74 victory.
• Also, last week NBA.com put out a story about the best Big East players in the League. Not surprisingly, four out of the five Hoyas got mentioned, and the Denver Nuggets were touted for having two famous Big East Alums. For more on Big East players in the NBA, be sure to revisit our story from a few weeks back about Big East tandems.

• In a revival of an old New England rivalry, the Providence Friars beat ex-Big East foe Boston College 98-89 in overtime. Weyinmi Efejuku had 21 points off the bench for Providence, as they scored 22 points in overtime to give the Eagles their first loss of the season.
• Earlier in the week, Syracuse scored 100 points but still lost to UMASS 107-100. It was the most points ever allowed by Syracuse in the Carrier Dome, where they have played since 1980.

• There were a number of Big East/ACC clashes during the Thanksgiving holidays. Marquette fell to Duke 77-73 in the finals of the Maui Invitational. Saturday, Seton Hall defeated Virginia 74-60, with Brian Laing leading all scorers with 25 points. And yesterday, North Carolina State edged out Villanova 69-68 in the Old Spice Classic Final. Gavin Grant made 2 out of 3 free throws with 0.4 seconds left to clinch the victory.
• On Friday, #6 Louisville suffered its first defeat, losing by two to Brigham Young University, 76-74. Earl Clark missed a potential game-tying three pointer with under five seconds left.