March 10th, 2008

BET Liveblog - Session 5 (Semifinals)

10:30 p.m.

It’s all over, and Louisville wins it 67-60. A tough loss for a West Virginia team that could have been looking at a 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament if they had made the Big East final. It’s especially tough for the many upperclassmen on WVU, who were six points away from a Big East title in 2006, and now they won’t get a second chance.

For the Cardinals, Angel McCoughtry will get a chance to face down Maya Moore, who edged her for Player of the Year. The team will get a chance to become one of the most improbable Big East champions since Boston College in 2004.

After 10 games, more than 30 hours of liveblogs, and 10 coaches headed off the podium with their heads down, it’s come down to this: Connecticut. Louisville. Tomorrow night at 7 on ESPN2. Make sure you’re with us on the Daily Campus blog tomorrow.

For now, I’ll be headed to the press conferences, and I’ll wrap up Day 3 in a bit, once I return to the Hilton. 

10:26 p.m.

The comeback got halted by a tremendous shot by Angel McCoughtry, who hit a trademark 16-footer with the shot clock expiring and 1:12 remaining in the game, giving Louisville a 65-57 lead.

West Virginia had cut the lead to 62-57 after a LaQuita Owens 3, and had a chance to pull within 3 or 4 with about two minutes to play, but Owens and Chakhia Cole each missed an open 3-pointer. It looks like Louisville will advance for a rematch with UConn, who beat the Cards by over 20 in front of 19,000 at Louisville in January. The only question is by how many points.

It’s 66-60 Louisville with 10 seconds to go. 

 

10:17 p.m.

We’ve got a stunning comeback in progress here at the XL Center. Louisville has led by 21 at more than one different time, but West Virginia has clawed back within 60-54 with under three to play.

The Mountaineers got a bad break when Angel McCoughtry missed a pair of floaters in the lane, but WVU couldn’t get the rebound. Louisville has the ball with 13 on the shot clock and 2:38 on the game clock. One more stop and another WVU bucket and things could get very interesting.

 

9:53 p.m.

Louisville has led by as many as 21 here, as West Virginia has come out flatter than a raccoon in Pat Summitt’s house (I can get more mileage out of that joke…just watch me). It was 41-21 at half, but it looks like Mike Carey (”If you shot 8-for-24 in the first half … you might play for West Virginia”) has turned things around. The Mountaineers are starting to knock down some shots and have cut the lead to 10, 50-40, with 11:19 left.

Chakhia Cole, who does not look exactly like a 3-point sharpshooter, has hit a couple in the last two minutes to narrow the gap. The Mountaineers are making a game of this, and they’ll have a couple free throws out of the timeout. So you don’t want to go anywhere, because we might have ourselves a stew cookin’.

Couple things: Geno Auriemma, you totally made my life by referring to Skittles Mowins’ love of the delicious fruity candy while your mic was on on the XL Center’s closed-circuit TV channel. Don’t think I wasn’t there.

HOMER ALERT! The West Virginia radio guy, who looks like a bit of an old-timer with all due respect, just pointed to an open West Virginia player in the corner behind the 3-point line. Amazingly, the WVU players were looking at that guy, made the pass, and the Mountaineers converted on the triple. You win tonight’s copy of Bernard Goldberg’s thick tome on liberal media leanings, Bias. Congratulations.

Also, the Louisville band’s faux-dixie tune while spelling out C-A-R-D-S is kind of growing on me. I suppose I could live with it if the Mountaineers’ tremendous band must go home.

 

8:56 p.m.

Well, West Virginia’s hanging in. Louisville’s lead expanded to 27-7 after Radde’s third 3-pointer (hero once more?), but the Mountaineers have stepped up the defensive intensity and are finally showing signs of life on offense. Meg Bulger’s 3 cut the score to 27-14 with 6:59 to play.

Louisville upset West Virginia in last year’s quarterfinals, and so far they’ve been the aggressors. West Virginia has settled for far too many jumpshots, and while they’re going to need to hit a few to get back in the game, there’s still far too much time left to be a jumpshooting team. It’s not WVU’s game anyway.

 

8:40 p.m.

So here’s a bit of a surprise: Louisville leads West Virginia 18-3 about four minutes in, behind four points from Chauntise Wright and a couple of perfect 3s from Brandie Raddie. Louisville is showing signs of being the token “hot for three days” tournament finalist, but obviously we have a long way to go. The Cards are playing a perfect game thus far.

For the record, Geno Auriemma does not “give a [thing of candy beans]” about Maya Moore’s streak ending. He went on to say that had she gotten the 10 points and played lousy, she would have felt lousy about it and he would have felt “cheap”. There were other sarcastic sentences and a couple other moments of profanity, but really, what’ s aGeno Auriemma press conference without one?

Back with more on game two, and perhaps a little more on the first game, later.

 

7:56 p.m. 

And Lorin Dixon’s sweet mid-air-adjusted layup closes it out for UConn, who wins it in impressive fashion: 74-47 over the No. 5 seeded Panthers.

UConn will advance to the Big East championship game for the fourth straight year, and will face the winner of the upcoming West Virginia/Louisville game. Stay with us here on the DC Blog, as we’ll let you know what goes on with that game. I’m off to get a handshake from Agnes Berenato.

 

 

7:47 p.m.

For the first time I can ever recall, fans did not give Maya Moore a standing ovation as she left for the final time in a game. That’s probably because they’re a bit upset with Geno Auriemma.

You see, Moore has scored in double figures in each of the Huskies’ first 31 games, the first freshman to have such a streak and the longest since Diana Taurasi did it from 2002-2003.

With 3:49 left, she appears to be done for the day with seven points. And so, mild uneasiness in the crowd. UConn’s got this one wrapped up, 68-40 with 3:49 to go. 

 

 

7:36 p.m.

Not much to report here, as UConn leads 62-36 with 7:56 to go. Though we do have a Fan of the Day candidate, the kid behind me yelling that “THAT WAS NOT RIGHT!” after Tina Charles threw away a pass to Renee Montgomery. No, son, that was not right. Reminds me of that one “Real Men of Genius” commercial, Mr. Sports Fan Heckler or something similar. Back later.

 

 7:26 p.m.

The UConn band is getting bored and is therefore begun its “dribble, dribble, dribble, pass, AHHHHHHHHH” routine. That’s when you know the game is over. Also, when Cassie Kerns gets in the game, you know it.

UConn leads 58-33 with 11:28 and the only real storyline left for this one is whether Maya Moore’s career-beginning streak of double-figure points will continue. She has 7 points and 3 fouls thus far, and hasn’t been the same aggressive offensive player since she was taken down by Epiphany Prince a week ago tonight. Not that it’s mattered, as UConn has more than enough to take down the Panthers and advance to tomorrow’s championship.

Renee Montgomery has come back to take the UConn scoring lead with 15.

Back at the next media timeout.

 7:06 p.m.

Utter domination by UConn in the first half. The Huskies lead, 44-22 behind 11 points Tina Charles and 10 by Ketia Swanier. It’s about as lopsided as the score indicates.

UConn’s held Pittsburgh to 9-for-37 shooting, and while the Panthers have 13 offensive rebounds, they have just five second-chance points. No Pitt player has more than five points; the Huskies have five players with at least seven.

UConn is shooting 56.7 perecent from the field (better than their 54.5% mark from the free-throw line) and is looking rather unbeatable.

Simply put, this UConn team (a team minus a pair of starters, mind you) is on a different level from normal teams. It’s becoming ever clearer, if you don’t mind me getting all ‘Big Picture’ on you, that there is a wide gulf of separation between the top six or seven teams and everybody else.

Tennessee, LSU, Rutgers, UConn, North Carolina and maybe Stanford and Maryland. One of those teams will be your national champion. I’m pretty confident in thatIt’s likely that at least three will make the Final Four, if not four. There are teams that can compete with this group on any given night, but no one would, say, win a best-of-3 series against them.

Keep in mind, Pittsburgh is a team that has a legitimate chance to make it to the Sweet 16. They are getting absolutely destroyed by UConn right now. Say what you will - the game’s in Hartford, Pitt’s tired playing their third game in three days - but it’s not like this happened before. UConn beat Pitt in their place, in front of a large crowd, by 26. Trust me on this.

More during the second half. 

6:33 p.m.

Maya Moore is an amazing player to watch. On UConn’s last possession, she was the strong side rebounder on a Renee Montgomery 3. When Montgomery’s shot hit the back of the rim and bounced to the other side of the court, Moore was there to sky and bring down the rebound. She’s a heads-up player and the fact that she’s here for three more years blows my mind.

Moore has two fouls, but Geno Auriemma’s showing a lot of confidence in Moore’s discipline by leaving her in. Also, it’s easy to play a little looser when you have a 21-point lead on the fift-best team in your conference in the first half. That’s where we’re at: UConn 33, Pittsburgh 12 with 4:38 to go.

 

6:23 p.m.

At the second media timeout (10:44 to go in the first half), UConn’s expanded their lead to 20-7 behind the 3-point shooting of Renee Montgomery, who has seven points.

Marcedes Walker is the only Panther to get anything going as of yet. She’s got five of Pitt’s 7, but the Panthers are going to have to get something out of Winn, Zellous and Stewart. Even getting contributions from two of the three might not be enough. Pittsburgh is already in a deep hole - they’ve already called two timeouts in the first 10 minutes - and UConn looks focused and on a mission.

Back with more.

 

6:12 p.m.

We are live here at the XL Center for the semifinal tussle between the Panthers of Pittsburgh and the Huskies of Connecticut.

Starting lineups:

UCONN (30-1, 15-1 - G. Auriemma): PG Ketia Swanier, SG Renee Montgomery, SF Maya Moore, PF Kaili McLaren, C Tina Charles

Pittsburgh (22-9, 10-6 - A. Berenato): PG Mallorie Winn, SG Shavonte Zellous, SF Sophronia Sallard, SF Xenia Stewart, C Marcedes Walker

 

The Huskies dominated these two teams’ last matchup in Pittsburgh last month, jumping out to a huge halftime lead and getting the entire Panther team in foul trouble in the opening 20. The final score of that game was 90-64, in Pittsburgh. It remains to be seen whether the Panthers will be similarly unready when they play in front of a partisan UConn crowd in Hartford.

Right now, early returns are that yes, yes they are. The Huskies lead 11-3 at the first media timeout, holding Pitt to a Marcedes Walker free throw and a Walker putback layup. Maya Moore still doesn’t seem to have her shot back yet, but as of yet they haven’t needed it.

Pittsburgh started slow against Notre Dame yesterday, and coach Agnes Berenato remarked that if they did it again against a better team, they’d get blown off the court with no chance to come back in the second half. We may see how prophetic Berenato is tonight.

 

 

5:25 p.m.

Welcome back to the XL Center for Day 3 of the monstrous Daily Campus liveblog. If you’re new, I’ll be bringing you updates every so often during tonight’s Big East semifinals. First up will be No. 1 seeded and No. 1 ranked UConn, as they take on No. 5 seed Pitt in about a half-hour. I’ll be back then with starting lineups and some pregame observations.

But first, dinner.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 4:27 pm and is filed under All Sports, Women's Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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