2.13 Around The Big East

Rutgers 57, Seton Hall 55 - Seton Hall fouls Eli Carter to extend the game with 37.2 left to play, but he splits his free throws, giving Rutgers a 55-49 lead. Seems pretty solid, right? SHU comes down and buries a triple from Kyle Smyth with 23.7 to play. Now we've got a game. The Pirates call time to draw up a trap in the corner, which burns five seconds before Rutgers calls their own time out. This is where things get wild. Inbounding from the sideline, Rutgers hits a streaking Eli Carter with a wide angle pass, and Carter heads in for a layup... and misses with 15 seconds left. Disaster time, right? Don't worry, Scarlet Knight fans, that's when Brian Oliver throws maybe the laziest outlet pass in basketball history given time and score. Mike Poole darts in front of Aaron Cosby for the steal and gets fouled.

Poole splits his free throws and the Pirates race back down the court where Fuquan Edwin tosses a wild three pointer at the rim and it goes in. 1 point game, 3.2 to play. Carter gets fouled on the inbound, and - SURPRISE - only hits the front end of his two free throws. Edwin gets a good look at a three-quarters court shot for the win... but it hits the top of the backboard. You can check in with South Orange Juice for more on this one.

Cincinnati 68, Villanova 50 - This was a three point game at the half, but apparently the Wildcats used up all their goodwill on the play that ended the half. Ryan Arcidiacono flipped the ball over his head to JayVaughn Pinkston, who caught it in the air in the lane and flipped it through the rim as the buzzer sounded. You can see the play at the 1:16 mark of this video on BigEast.org. It took over five minutes of the second half for Nova to get another field goal, and that one cut the lead back to six at that point. Combine a scoring outage with letting the Bearcats score from distance repeatedly, and things got out of hand. Sean Kilpatrick and JaQuon Parker both had 19 to lead Cincy, while Pinkston had the most points for VU, scoring 12 points off the bench. VU Hoops has their view of things here, while Down The Drive celebrates staying above .500 in the Big East.