Georgetown, Marquette Advance To Big East Tournament Quarterfinals

Fortunes change very quickly in the Big East Tournament. Just ask South Florida and St. John’s.

A day after beating up on DePaul, the Bulls ran into a determined Georgetown team that cruised to a 69-49 victory. Greg Monroe led the Hoyas with 16 points and helped Georgetown avenge their loss to South Florida during the regular season. At 21-13, the Bulls are now at the mercy of the NCAA selection committee to see if they’ve done enough to make the tournament (probably not).

The Hoyas now move on to the Quarterfinals where they’ll face-off against the top-seeded Syracuse Orange. SU beat the Hoyas twice during the season and the all-time Big East Tournament record against one another is 6-6.

In the 2nd game of the day, St. John’s almost pulled off their second-straight upset. After knocking UConn out of the BET a day earlier, the Red Storm looked sluggish early against Marquette, scoring only 17 points. The Johnnies stormed back in the second half to take a brief lead but in the end, Marquette held on for a 57-55 victory. Lazar Hayward led the Eagles with 20 points.

Marquette moves on to play Villanova in the Quarterfinals on Thursday. At 21-10, the Eagles could sure use a win there to solidify their NCAA Tournament seeding.

Action picks up again this evening when Seton Hall takes on Notre Dame, followed by Cincinnati and Louisville.