• The Pittsburgh Panthers won the Big East Championship on Saturday, beating the Georgetown Hoyas 74-65 in Madison Square Garden. It was the seventh time in eight years that Pittsburgh had reached the Championship game and the second time they have won it in those years.
• Eight teams from the Big East made the NCAA Tournament, tying a record the conference set in 2006. Each of the four regions have two Big East teams who could meet in the Elite Eight.
• The Providence Friars have fired head coach Tim Welsh after having only two winning conference records in his ten years at the helm.

• The Georgetown Hoyas played in the Big East Tournament this past weekend, beating Villanova and West Virginia, but falling to the Pittsburgh Panthers in the Championship game. It was the first loss Georgetown has ever suffered in the tournament after earning a #1 seed.
• Despite the loss, Georgetown earned itself a #2 seed in the Midwest Region of the NCAA Tournament and will face #15-seed UMBC on Friday in Raleigh, NC.
• Three other local schools - George Mason, American, and Mount Saint Mary’s - also made the tournament and are preparing for their opening round matches this week.
• As in the first game of the season, Jeff Green and the Seattle Supersonics traveled to Denver to take on Allen Iverson’s Nuggets yesterday. The Nuggets destroyed the Sonics, 168-116, setting a franchise record for points in regulation. Iverson had 24 points on 8-12 shooting from the field and 8-8 from the stripe. Jeff Green earned himself 8 points and 4 assists, but it wasn’t enough to stop the hot Nuggets who had eight players in double figures.

Teams

Georgetown:
The biggest problem for the Hoyas in this game was rebounding. They allowed Pittsburgh to get 18 offensive rebounds, and even when they didn’t lead to second-chance points, it made the Hoyas exert themselves on defense, which in turn made the offense struggle.
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Georgetown
			SHOOTING			REBOUNDS
		MIN	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	OFF	DEF	TOT	AST	PF	ST	TO	BLK	PTS
2	* Wallace	35	4-9	2-6	2-2	1	1	2	5	2	1	1	0	12
3	* Summers	23	4-7	0-3	1-2	1	5	6	2	5	0	4	0	9
15	* Freeman	25	3-7	3-6	0-0	0	0	0	2	2	0	1	0	9
21	* Sapp	23	3-8	3-6	0-0	0	2	2	1	2	0	2	1	9
55	* Hibbert	28	8-14	0-0	1-1	2	4	6	1	4	0	1	1	17
1	Macklin	9	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	1	1	0	1	0	0	1	0
4	Wright	18	0-4	0-2	0-0	0	2	2	0	3	1	1	0	0
5	Rivers	11	0-0	0-0	1-2	0	3	3	0	5	0	1	0	1
22	Crawford	1	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
33	Ewing	27	3-5	0-1	2-2	1	1	2	4	4	3	2	4	8
	TEAM					0	4	4
	Total	200	25-54	8-24	7-9	5	24	29	15	28	5	13	7	65
			46.3%	33.3%	77.8%

Technical Fouls
Pittsburgh: None
Georgetown: None

Arena Stats
Arena	Madison Square Garden
Officials	John Cahill, Jim Burr, Bob Donato
Attendance	19,562

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The Georgetown Hoyas lost their first Big East Tournament game ever as the top seed, losing to the Pittsburgh Panthers 74-65. Sam Young was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player, scoring 16 points to go along with Ronald Ramon’s 17.
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Well here we are, the Big East Championship game at Madison Square Garden in the heart of New York. Johnny here with you, checking in about an hour away from the opening tip. As I was coming in, I could hear rivaling chants of “Let’s Go Pitt” and “Hoya Saxa” as the fans were awaiting the gates to open. That should happen in about five minutes, so right now it’s pretty quiet in here. The two teams are warming up and all the scoreboards in the Garden have the Georgetown G and Pittsburgh PITT written on them.

It’s going to be an exciting game - a rematch of last year’s final and the chance for Georgetown to beat the only Big East team it has yet to defeat. I’ll check back with whatever info I get, so stay tuned. And feel free to tell me what you think about the game or ask me any questions you have in the comments.

Teams

Georgetown:
The Hoyas continue to show their ability to win in different ways. Against Villanova, the team got no offensive production from Roy Hibbert, but used a three-point barrage to coast to victory. In this game, Georgetown used a revitalized Hibbert to pound West Virginia inside. They also continued their stellar defense, holding the Mountaineer’s hot hand Joe Alexander to just 12 points on 5-16 shooting.
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Team Stats
Pittsburgh		Georgetown
25-9	Record	27-4
Big East	Conference	Big East
10-8	Conference Record	15-3
16-2	Home Record	16-0
5-7	Away Record	8-4
74.1	Points / Game	69.9
65.2	Points Allowed / Game	57.5
37.7	Rebounds / Game	35.2
14.4	Offensive Rebounds / Game	10.0
16.0	Assists / Game	15.7
12.2	Turnovers / Game	13.2
3.3	Blocks / Game	4.9

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The Pittsburgh Panthers survived a valiant comeback effort by Marquette to defeat the Golden Eagles 68-61. Sam Young had a game-high 22 points as the Panthers advance to their seventh Big East Tournament final in eight years.
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Georgetown: 72, West Virginia: 55

Georgetown
			SHOOTING			REBOUNDS
		MIN	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	OFF	DEF	TOT	AST	PF	ST	TO	BLK	PTS
2	* Wallace	34	3-6	3-4	0-0	0	3	3	2	2	1	1	0	9
3	* Summers	30	4-9	1-3	0-0	2	1	3	2	0	2	2	1	9
15	* Freeman	21	3-4	1-1	0-0	0	2	2	2	1	1	1	0	7
21	* Sapp	27	6-11	1-4	0-1	1	6	7	2	1	0	2	0	13
55	* Hibbert	30	12-17	1-1	0-1	10	3	13	2	2	1	1	2	25
1	Macklin	9	2-2	0-0	0-1	1	3	4	2	0	0	0	0	4
4	Wright	13	0-2	0-0	0-2	0	3	3	2	1	1	2	0	0
5	Rivers	16	1-4	0-2	0-0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	0	2
11	Jansen	0+	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
22	Crawford	0+	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
31	Wattad	0+	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
33	Ewing	22	1-5	0-2	1-2	0	1	1	3	3	0	0	0	3
	TEAM					3	1	4
	Total	200	32-60	7-17	1-7	17	23	40	17	11	7	10	3	72
			53.3%	41.2%	14.3%

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