BIG EAST BLOGGERS POWER POLL AND NEWS & NOTES
Back for our third season is our Big East Bloggers Weekly Power Poll. This is already the 13th weekly edition of the season already. On November 8th we released our Preseason Poll and our weekly poll will be published each and every Monday going forward on the season. This week we were delayed because of the holiday, hopefully next week you can find this on our normal Monday slot.
This week we also add our Daily News & Notes section to the Power Poll. We have several recruiting updates and a few other league notes after a busy weekend.
The pollsters will also submit votes as well for a Big East player of the week and Big East freshman of the week.
Here are the 22 contributors on today’s poll:
Big East Basketball Report Blog
Troy Nunes is a Magician
The Score’s NCAA Basketball Blog
I95 Ballerz.com
Card Chronicle
CuseAdelphia
Black & Green ND Basketball Blog
HoyaSaxa.com
HoyaHoops.com
Freshjive, founder of BlueDemonNation
SPK, frequent contributor to Piratecrew.com
Black Padres.com
Let’s Go Nova
The Bracket Blog @ Bracketography
RAC ‘Em up
East Coast Bias
PittBlather.com
Chris Dokish, contributor to Big East Basketball Report and Pittsburgh Sports Report
BigEastCountry.com
Super, Scintillating & Sarcastic
Bryce’s Brackets and Observations
WV Mountaineer Sports
As always, if you have a site related to college basketball or the Big East, send us an e-mail (nbeblog@hotmail.com) with a link and you will be added to the list of contributors to the polls in the future.
Click below to see the poll results!
This Week’s Power Poll Results for 2/11/2008 (1st Place Votes in Parentheses):
1) Georgetown (13): 339 points.
2) Louisville (6): 324 points.
3) Notre Dame (1): 306 points.
4) Connecticut (2): 302 points.
5) Pittsburgh: 256 points.
6) Marquette: 249 points.
7) Syracuse: 208 points. *tie
7) West Virginia: 208 points. *tie
9) Cincinnati: 173 points.
10) Seton Hall: 148 points.
11) Villanova: 132 points.
12) DePaul: 116 points.
13) St. John’s: 84 points.
14) Providence: 81 points.
15) Rutgers: 41 points.
16) South Florida: 25 points.
Player of the Week: Luke Harangody..
Freshman of the Week: Jonny Flynn.
LAST WEEK’S BIG EAST RESULTS:
Monday, February 4:
Louisville 71 Marquette 57
Tuesday, February 5:
South Florida 53 Georgetown 63
DePaul 65 Providence 79
Wednesday, February 6:
Connecticut 63 Syracuse 61
Notre Dame 95 Seton Hall 69
St. John’s 52 Rutgers 45
Thursday, February 7:
West Virginia 54 Pittsburgh 55
Saturday, February 9:
Providence 62 St. John’s 64
Marquette 83 Notre Dame 86
South Florida 61 DePaul 69
Cincinnati 72 Rutgers 68 (OT)
Seton Hall 70 Villanova 72
Georgetown 51 Louisville 59
Home teams were 8-5 last week and hold a 56-30 advantage on the season.
BIG EAST NEWS & NOTES:
Notre Dame extended their home court win streak to 34 games overall and 15 in Big East contests as Sickly Irish Gut One Out (South Bend Tribune) over Marquette, 86-83. Luke Harangody and Zach Hillesland fell ill prior to the game and Rob Kurz missed Friday’s team activities with a stomach virus. Harangody still managed 18 points and 11 rebounds as Notre Dame hands Marquette their second straight loss and gets revenge for a 92-66 thumping at Marquette earlier this season.
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6’9 David Bruce has had several Big East schools monitoring his progress. The Linden (NJ) HS junior is averaging 15 PPG and 11 rebounds for coach Phil Colicchio this season, but picked a big stage to have his best performance. Bruce scored 34 points and grabbed 15 rebounds yesterday in Linden’s 77-68 overtime victory over St. Raymond’s of the Bronx Sunday at the PrimeTime Shootout and as a result norm Roberts was quite impressed as St. John’s Offers Bruce (zagsblog) a scholarship.
According to Zags, Bruce also holds offers from several other schools, including Seton Hall, St. Joseph, La Salle and Houston as well as St. John’s, and has interest from Rutgers, Villanova, Miami and Missouri.
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Bob Huggins is trying to find more toughness out of his West Virginia squad, one player that is considered the toughest, might be their smallest. Joe Mazzulla is also a different sort and those quirks and stories from teammates make him who he is…but he has their respect as Mazzulla is WVU’s ‘Toughest’ Player (Daily Mail)
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With injuries to Pitt’s backcourt coming quickly in late December, Brad Wanamaker found himself thrust into the fire. Coming off Player of the Year accolades in the City of Philadelphia at Roman Catholic High School, expectations were high for Wanamaker, but he had trouble adapting to the speed of the college game. However, Jamie Dixon kept turning to him and With Guards Scarce, Pitt Gets Wanamaker Going (Beaver County Times) and it pays off with his best game in Big East play coming against WVU last Thursday.
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With both teams needing to get off the mat following humbling defeats earlier in the week, Seton Hall Drops a Wild One at Villanova (Star-Ledger) when Dwayne Anderson hits a go-ahead three-pointer in the waning seconds for Villanova to snap a five-game losing streak.
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It was a tough loss for Providence as PC Lets Another Close One Slip Away (Providence Journal), 64-62 at St. John’s Saturday. The Friars chances for a trip to Madison Square Garden are in great peril and so could the job security of Tim Welsh.
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For 40 minutes, Rutgers shut down Cincinnati’s Deonta Vaughn and the Scarlet Knights were in position to win. However, once overtime hit, Deonta Finally Found His Way (Cincinnati Enquirer), scoring 13 of his 19 points in the 5-minute extra session to lead UC to a 72-68 win over the Scarlet Knights.
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Here are Van Coleman’s reviews from the Primetime Shootout over the weekend for CSTV.com:
Sunday’s Games
Saturday Night’s Games
Friday Night Games
The next big time prospect from Trevor Brown’s National Christian Academy program in Fort Washington (MD) is 6’8, 230 lb junior power forward Dante Taylor. Currently, Five Stand Out in Taylor’s Recruitment (Yahoo! Sports) including Big East members Connecticut, Georgetown and Pittsburgh. Taylor is averaging 20 pts and 11 rebounds a game this season.
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Glen Mills 6’9 junior center Aaric Murray finished with 18 points, 20 rebounds and six blocked shots, as Temple coach Fran Dunphy and Pittsburgh assistant Orlando Antigua looked on as Glen Mills’ Late Heroics Oust Plmouth-Whitemarsh (Philadelphia Inquirer)in the District 1 Class AAAA playoff opener, 65-63. Murray hit 6 of 8 free throws in the 4th quarter to help seal the victory.
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THIS WEEK’S BIG EAST GAMES:
Monday, February 11:
Villanova @ Georgetown
Tuesday, February 12:
Marquette @ Seton Hall
Providence @ Pittsburgh
Louisville @ DePaul
Wednesday, February 13:
St. John’s @ Cincinnati
Syracuse @ South Florida
Notre Dame @ Connecticut
Thursday, February 14:
Rutgers @ West Virginia
Friday, February 15:
Pittsburgh @ Marquette
Saturday, February 16:
Connecticut @ South Florida
Georgetown @ Syracuse
Louisville @ Providence
Villanova @ St. John’s
Sunday, February 17:
Notre Dame @ Rutgers
Seton Hall @ West Virginia
Last Week’s Power Poll for 2/4/2008 (1st Place votes in parenthesis):
1) Georgetown (19): 319 points.
2) Notre Dame: 280 points.
3) Connecticut: 270 points.
4) Marquette (1): 265 points.
5) Louisville: 259 points.
6) Pittsburgh: 206 points.
7) West Virginia: 203 points..
Syracuse: 186 points.
9) Seton Hall: 153 points.
10) Cincinnati: 145 points.
11) Villanova: 113 points.
12) Providence: 100 points.
13) DePaul: 97 points.
14) Rutgers: 56 points.
15) St. John’s: 45 points.
16) South Florida: 23 points.
Player of the Week: Luke Harangody..
Freshman of the Week: DeJuan Blair.
The following contributors voted in previous polls, but missed the cut-off date to submit votes this week. Hopefully they will be back in action next week!
Marquette Basketball Cracked Sidewalks
Storming the Floor
The Big EZ Show
CourtVisions College Hoops Blog
March Madness All Season Blog
HoyaProspectus
Villanova by the Numbers