Another good win for the Irish today at home in the Joyce. Syracuse is a pretty young team, but they are still dangerous as Georgetown found out this week. McAlarney put on a 3pt shooting clinic today and that was the difference in the game. Syracuse with their athleticism and leaping ability was able to get inside and score and keep themselves in the game. That to me is the flaw in the Irish that will keep them from going deep in the tournament. They just don't have the athleticism and leaping abiltity of the top teams like Tenn and Memphis, they have to be on with their outside shooting. In the loss to UConn when they went cold from the outside they just didn't have enough inside game to compensate. Terry
That game was great.....The perfect game to get a fan back into it all. Right around the corner, conf tourney and big dance time..... Cuse looks very tough in the next few years......
Luke Harangody had a great game tonight but Louisville was clearly the better team. They really put defensive pressure on us and had several big leads before we got on a run to make it close at the end. I was very impressed with Louisvilles David Padget, he scored with both his right and left hand. Right now at the end of the season i think Louisville is the best team in the Big East and certainly could make a final four run. I think we are a very good team but I can't see us going past the sweet sixteen. Go Irish. Terry
Irish rebound with a good game vs DePaul. The were up by almost 20 pts at halftime and just cruised to the victory. DePaul eventually got hot and made the game interesting down the stretch but they were just too far behind to make up all the distance. I notice the same thing with DePaul that I have noticed in a lot of other games. Their big men and guards are able to get inside of our defense and get shots, where as we are mainly a periimeter team. They are more athletic and faster than we are as well, but they are young and didn't play good defense so our shooters had more open looks than they saw against a great defense in Louisville. Harangody got his usual 20+ points, both down low and with medium range jumpers as well. This clinches the bye in the Big East tourney. Irish womens team also clinched a bye in the Big East tourney. I think the Ladies have a good shot at going to the Sweet 16, they have played a tough schedule and have only lost to teams that will likely be seeded 1 or 2 in the NCAA's, which means we wouldn't see them till the sweet 16. Terry
Luke Harangody was named 2nd Team AA in Sports Illustrated. He's likely to win BE POY and be a 1st Team BE. I think most people thought he would be a good player and liked what they saw of him in high school but doubt if they would have predicted this by his soph season. When he was recruited everybody called him Bam Bam, but I don't see that used much any more. Congrats to Luke!!
Irish get a workman like win over St. Johns tonight to extend the home winning streak to 37 games, haven't lost a home conference game in 2 years. Harangody gets his 20 I assume he got 10 rebounds but don't know for sure. Last game of the season is Sat in Tampa vs USF. Go Irish.
Here's hoping for a good BET run. Our ladies team flamed out in their first game. That really is going to hurt their NCAA seeding. At one point they were a good shot to get a #3 seed, bet they now fall to a #6 or worse. For the guys it's not important that they win the BET, but they need to play well and it would be very nice to make it to the finals. But that will be tough as we'll likely have to play Louisville in the semi's and I think they are probably a better team than we are. We did play them close in terms of score at their place but I don't think the final score really reflected the difference between the 2 teams. Louisvilles pressure defense totally disarmed our shooters and they had such a big lead that they lost focus and let us back and we got red hot down the stretch and made the score close. Of course it will be a neutral court. Terry
Terry, Re: Louisville. If we get to that point, I would feel better about our chances than the last game vs. them would indicate, only because L'ville was so hot at the beginning of the game that we were in an immediate hole. After that incredible early hot shooting streak we basically played them even or slightly better without McAlarney's "normal" points contribution. Having said that, I agree that L'ville is probably the best team in the BE at this time despite their close loss to G'town last Saturday.