BIG EAST Women’s Basketball Tournament Quarterfinal Report

By Ann K. Miller: SPM CT Writer
Posted Sunday, March 9, 2008

Angel McCoughtry celebrates with Louisville Cardinal after her team upset #2-seed Rutgers in the BIGEAST Tournament quarterfinal Sunday. Photo by Tara Polen.

HARTFORD, Conn. - On a brisk, windy Sunday in Hartford, basketball fans began pouring into the XL Center, eagerly anticipating the BIGEAST Tournament quarterfinal matchups. Of the four games on the slate, two potential "revenge" contests were of particular interest: Pittsburgh-Notre Dame and Connecticut-DePaul.

The results for the day were surprising and exhilarating for the faithful who stayed in their seats through both sessions. It makes for a very long day, but Sunday‘s games were definitely worth the price of admission -- and then some.

GAME ONE: #5 Pittsburgh takes down #4 Notre Dame, 64-53.

The last time these two teams met on February 10th, the Panthers were absolutely humiliated by the Irish, 81-66. It appeared that history was going to repeat itself as Pitt fell behind early, trailing 14-2 at the 10:49 mark.

This time, however, Pitt didn’t give up. Head coach, Agnus Berenato said afterwards, “...they just really believed that they could play ... the team really rallied, they really responded ... I told them that we just had to chip away…”

Pitt did indeed begin to chip away. Renewing themselves on defense, they managed to hold the Irish to only one field goal in the last 11:04 of the half. Then they tied the game 17-17 at the 4:30 mark and posted their first lead with less than two minutes remaining in the half.

The Irish went into the locker room at the half with a a slim 22-21 lead.

In the second period the lead changed nine times and the score was tied four times. Pitt pulled ahead for good with 2:49 left in the game at 53-51 on a jumper from senior center Marcedes Walker. Walker scored ten points in the second half. The win was cemented on a 3-pointer from Xenia Stewart with 54 seconds on the clock. Stewart hit three big shots from beyond the arc in the second half.

This is the second consecutive year that Notre Dame has been defeated in the first round of the Big East tournament. Head coach Muffet McGraw was understandably disappointed.

“In this game I thought our defense was pretty good in the first half. I thought Xenia Stewart was the difference in the game. She hit those two threes and I thought that was the game. We lost it right there when she made those two threes,” she said.

Notre Dame is the highest-ranked team Pittsburgh has ever defeated. For their reward Pitt gets to play against UConn in the first semifinal game Monday night at 6pm.

GAME TWO: #1 Connecticut Asserts Its Position Against #9 DePaul

The Connecticut Huskies came into today's game trying to atone for poor play last time out against the DePaul Blue Demons -- and to set the tone for the rest of this tourney and for the upcoming national tournament.

Both teams started off experiencing shooting woes. Shots that should have gone in just weren’t falling for either team, and the score was dismal. Things didn’t start to heat up for either team until midway through the first half, at which point UConn led 15-13.

The crowd wanted to see UConn’s freshman forward, Maya Moore, who had just been named both BIGEAST Freshman and Player of the Year, get on the scoreboard. She didn’t deliver in the first half, going just 3-12. She did, however, collect nine rebounds, one assist and one steal in the first period.

While junior guard Renee Montgomery put the clamps on DePaul's leading scorer Allie Quigley, UConn center Tina Charles started getting busy in the paint. She had 14 points and seven rebounds in the first half, playing all 20 minutes.

Senior forward Charde Houston came in off the bench and contributed eight points, including one stretch of six consecutive unanswered points at an opportune time for the otherwise slumping Huskies. Houston's contributions helped send the Huskies to the locker room with a 44-29 lead.

Moore came alive In the second half doubling her score to 14 for the game. Her 15 rebounds led all players.

Renee Montgomery heated up as well, finishing with a game-high 19 points.

Quigley scored 17 in the game and dished three assists. Sophomore guard Deirdre Naughton had a game-high seven assists.

Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma compared today's game with the last time his team played DePaul.

“The matchups are not good for us against DePaul," he said. "They got eight 3s on us in the first half of the other game and they only had one tonight in the first half, and that was a huge point of emphasis for us. I thought that once the second half started … we were maybe a little more relaxed. That first 10 minutes of the half was some really good basketball out of us.”

Auriemma feels DePaul should have a shot at getting into the NCAA tournament. “I told [DePaul coach] Doug [Bruno] that I hope we see them again. I’m sure that in NCAA tournament time, whoever plays them will make for a tough matchup just like they are for us.”

UConn outrebounded DePaul 50-32 and Coach Bruno felt that was the key to the game. “There’s a reason why big guys are important to the game of basketball and I think we saw that tonight,” he said. “We just really had no answer for their ability to rebound the basketball. We just didn’t have enough legs inside to deal with the ability of UConn to rebound the ball ... in a nutshell it’s the classic example of you put your pants on just like they do, one leg at a time, its just that they have longer legs.”

Next up UConn will face Pitt in the semi-final game Monday night at 6pm.

GAME THREE: #2 Rutgers Implodes; #7 Louisville Capitalizes, 57-56

In this game of red (Scarlet Knight) vs. red (Cardinals) the action got red-hot on the floor. This was more of a war than a game. Every possession was hotly and physically contested.

One immediate result of the game’s physicality was that Rutgers' two seniors -- point guard Matee Ajavon and forward Essence Carson -- found themselves in early foul trouble. With the Rutgers bench already down to only three players due to injuries, and considering their essential roles in the Scarlet Knights' success, Coach C.Vivian Stringer had little choice but to leave them in the game.

Neither team could buy a basket in the opening minutes of the first half. Louisville’s game plan was to make Rutgers play a faster style game than what they are accustomed to - and it worked as Rutgers hurried its shots and missed many.

On the other end, Rutgers defense was double and triple-teaming Louisville’s Angel McCoughtry who leads her team -- and the conference -- in scoring. McCoughtry managed to fight off the defense enought to put nine first-half points on the board.

Ajavon matched McCoughtry’s point contribution in the first, but picked up her third foul with 4:14 left in the stanza.

Rutgers led by one at the break -- 26-25 -- following four ties and 12 lead changes.

The second half saw more of the same. The lead switched hands 15 more times and was tied three. Each play was a wild scramble for possession, with frequent held ball calls as players scratched and clawed their way through the half. The largest point margin during the half was advantage Louisville, when they led 32-28 at the 18:11 mark. The rest of the way the Scarlet Knights and the Cardinals were mostly one basket or one point away from each other.

Rebounding was the big difference in this game, just as it had been In the Connecticut-DePaul game. As Stringer noted afterwards, Louisville did the better job of controlling the boards, outrebounding the Scarlet Knights 34-23.

McCoughtry broke away from Rutgers' defense enough to add 11 more points in the half, and when she wasn't open she found teammate junior forward Candyce Bingham, free several times due to Rutgers' failure to communicate off of screens on their defense.

Like many Rutgers games, this one went right down to the wire with the Scarlet Knights getting a chance to score at the end. With the score at 57-56, Rutgers had the ball with 4.4 left on the clock. One field goal was all they needed, but they couldn't execute. Prince got the ball on the sideline in front of her team’s bench and McCoughtry hounded it -- and Prince -- and suddenly the ball was falling out of Prince’s hands. McCoughtry threw herself on the ball, smothering it as time expired.

McCoughtry and Jeff Walz, Louisville’s coach, were emotional after the game. “I’ve got a group of kids here who have bought into what we have tried to bring to this program,” he said. ”We’re learning to get a bit tougher, we’re learning to fight through some adversity, and I couldn’t be prouder of what they’ve done. I’ve told them from day one, if we just play for 40 minutes as hard as we can the score will take care of itself.”

Stringer and her team seemed to be in shock after the game. The players had little comment and Prince told the media that she couldn’t recall exactly what had occurred on the last play when she committed that final turnover.

“I just know the game is over,” she said.

Initially, the usually chatty Stringer had little comment but as she came out of her state of shock she shared many thoughts. Stringer attributed much of Louisville’s success to their ability to rebound more than her team.

“These people [Louisville]acted like there was food in there and everybody was hungry,” she said, referring to the Cardinals' voraciousness on the boards.

Stringer also faulted her team for going into “survival mode” when the Louisville began to apply defensive pressure. For Rutgers, “’Survival mode’ means taking care of ourselves - don’t trust others to do their job.”

Rutgers was unable to run its famous "55" defense for any significant length of time, another factor which hurt them in this up-tempo, aggressive game. They just do not have the number of players they need to employ this high-energy, intense defense, and Stringer mentioned that with such a small squad, practices are not "realistic" and that from now on she is planning to have 12-15 players on her team. Rutgers has been decimated by injuries and today's game demonstrated the cumulative effects.

Rutgers was the Big East Champion last year, this year they go home after one game in the tournament. Stringer believes that tonight’s performance will probably net them a third or fourth seed in the NCAA tournament; “We have a way of messing ourselves up,” she said.

Prince and Ajavon each had 13 points for Rutgers. Kia Vaughn had 12 points and seven rebounds. Ajavon also had eight assists, leading all players in that category.

Louisville will face West Virginia in the second semi-final game at the XL Center on Monday; Game time is a pproximately 8pm.

GAME FOUR: #3 West Virginia Humbles #11 South Florida, 64-42

Although South Florida pulled off the big upset on day one of the tournament to send #6 Syracuse home early, they were unlikely to repeat that performance today against West Virginia. Instead, they were dominated from the start, going down in flames 64-42.

The Bulls were no match for the Mountaineers, who took an early 16-6 lead and led 39-15 at the half after USF went scoreless over the last five minutes of the first. By the middle of the second half, West Virginia was ahead by 32-points. USF was held to 20 percent shooting in the first half and 25.4 percent for the game. They shot a woeful 2-of-23 (8.7 percent) from behind the arc despite averaging 33 percent on the season.

"I thought that the first few minutes of the game set the pace for us," West Virginia head coach Mike Carey said. "We came out and you could tel that South Florida had a tough game yesterday We have to give them credit, they had a tough game and they won it in overtime."

South Florida head coach Jose Fernandez echoed Carey's statement.

"Last night we played a little out of emotion, with a lot of effort," he said. "It seemed like we just did not have any legs those first four, eight minutes. You can tell with us going 2-for-23 from three-point range. Last night we go 10-for-20. The good thing was we were down 30 at the end of the game, and our kids kept battling and kept competing. So, that was good to see."

Shantia Grace, South Florida’s junior guard, led her team with 13 points on 4-14 shooting. Sophomore forward Porche Grant hauled in 16 rebounds for the Bulls, leading all players in that category.

For the Mountaineers, senior center Olayinka Sanni led the way with a game-high 20 points on 9-14 shooting in just 24 minutes. She also had seven rebounds in her 23rd career 20-point game (11th of the season).

Senior forward Chakhia Cole played and started in her 127th career game, Mountaineer records.

West Virginia will play Louisville in Monday night’s semi-final. Game time is approximately 8pm. Both semi-final games will be broadcast nationally on ESPNU.

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