Friday, January 23, 2009

Ugly Game, Pretty Results

A couple of weeks ago Mick Cronin said that to win in the Big East you have to win ugly. Thursday night at St John's was the ever popular "pig with lipstick". Meet the pig: an 11 point deficit at half time, only 1 for 11 three pointers in the first half for UC, Rashad Bishop getting ejected early in the second half and a combined 53 foul shots. It wasn't pretty but it was a 71-60 win when the smoke cleared. Here is the ESPNU recap of the first half before the second half got started.
As we said earlier, Rashad Bishop and St John's D.J. Kennedy were ejected early in the second half. No punches were thrown, no pushing, just some jawing. Apparently that was enough.

After Bishop was gone the team began to turn things around. Deonta Vaughn was definitely the team leader down the stretch. He had 20 of his 23 points in the second half. Trailing by 11 with just over 13 minutes to go UC outscored St Johns 31-9 from that point. Deonta Vaughn was a major part of that run.

On the road trip the Cats won 2 out of 3. Now it's back to practice and some time off. The next game is at home next Wednesday when Georgetown pays a visit to Fifth Third Arena.

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