Sports Poets Society

By TroyMauriello @TroyMauriello on Mar 11, 2015, 11:06a As the Big East Tournament kicks off tonight at The World's Most Famous Arena, no teams in the conference should be playing for their NCAA Tournament lives over the next four days. It seems as though six teams in the conference can be either partially or extremely confident that they will hear their names called on selection Sunday, while four teams have little to no chance at a tournament berth, given they do not win four straight games in four days. With the Villanova Wildcats on top and a cluster of teams all capable of making a run below them, it goes without saying that this should be a fun four days for the rising Big East. Let's take a look at who's rising and who's falling going into the tournament, which kicks off tonight. Trending Upward Villanova- As the fourth-ranked team in the nation, Villanova obviously comes in as the clear favorites to win the tournament, but it's hard to put into words ju...

By Chris Mcmanus   @CerasolisGhost on Mar 11, 2015, 4:34p Touted as little more than a superb rebounder with developing post skills and great upside coming out of The Patrick School (N.J.), Angel Delgado played second fiddle to McDonald's All-American guard Isaiah Whitehead coming into Seton Hall's 2014-15 season. 30 games later, Delgado has been named Big East Rookie of the Year, is the conference's best rebounder as a freshman and has been undeniably Seton Hall's most important player this season. Delgado is also in unchartered territory. He's only the second freshman in the Big East's 36 season history to lead the conference in rebounding (10.7 rpg in Big East play), following in the footsteps of Notre Dame's Troy Murphy, who pulled down 10.3 per game in 1998-99. Delgado is the first-ever Seton Hall player to lead the conference in boards and is just the second Seton Hall freshman to be named Rookie of the Year after the late Eddie Griffin was honor...

By Sean Saint Jacques @SSaintj7 on Mar 11, 2015, 10:00a Many players in the Big East have a case to be the Player of the Year, but Providence’s LaDontae Henton has the strongest. Here are three reasons why the Lansing, Michigan native will win Player of the Year on Wednesday. 1) His scoring is off the charts If you look up the word, "scoring" the dictionary, there is a good chance that a picture of Henton dunking a basketball is waiting for you. Not really, but you get the picture. Henton leads the conference in points per game with 20.1 and also has averaged 6.3 rebounds during his senior season. It is not just recently that Henton has lead the conference in scoring. Henton has done it for almost the entire season and is the wire-to-wire scoring champion in conference play. Henton has played in all 31 of his team’s games to this point of the season. In those game, he has scored in double figures 28 times. In those same contests, Henton has scored 20 points or more 17 t...

By Matt Velazquez of the Journal Sentinel March 10, 2015 New York — Over the past four months Marquette has suffered through its worst season in more than a decade, finishing with a 12-18 record. But that doesn't matter anymore, at least not to coach Steve Wojciechowski. The Big East tournament is the great equalizer and even though his Golden Eagles are the ninth seed out of 10 teams playing at Madison Square Garden this week, he knows that all bets are off in conference tournament games. "Why not us? Seeds don't matter," Wojciechowski said. "I've been in situations where I have been coaching on teams who have been the No. 1 seed and we got our butts kicked. Seeds don't matter. (For) everybody it's a fresh start." Marquette will face Seton Hall (16-14) at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the tournament opener. The teams split their regular-season matchups, with the Pirates running away in the second half for an 80-70 win in Milwaukee and the Golden Eagles ...

UPDATED 2:10 PM EDT Mar 10, 2015 Two teams that endured a disappointing run through the Big East regular season square off Wednesday at Madison Square Garden in the opening round of the conference tournament. DePaul, the seventh seed, enters having lost seven straight games and has only one victory since Jan. 22. Tenth-seeded Creighton has lost three straight contests, although those defeats came by a total of six points.The last win for the Bluejays came on DePaul's home court on Feb. 24, when they posted a 75-62 triumph behind James Milliken's 18 points. That served as a measure of revenge for Creighton, which lost at home to the Blue Demons on Jan. 7. Forrest Robinson scored a career-high 20 points for the Blue Demons that night as they improved to 3-0 in the Big East, although it was essentially all downhill from there. TV: 9:30 p.m. ET, Fox Sports 1   ABOUT CREIGHTON (13-18):  Austin Chatman (18 points) and Milliken (17) each enjoyed a productive game against Xavi...

Serata che più Real non si può. Perlomeno da questo Real, appena staccato di tre punti dal Barcellona capolista in Liga. E sì ai quarti di Champions, ma soffrendo l'indicibile. Altro che undicesima vittoria in fila nella coppa che detiene. Una squadra che segna tanto e subisce troppo, quella di Ancelotti, che alla vigilia aveva parlato di crisi più tecnica che fisica. Dopo il ko di Bilbao in campionato, sotto tre volte tra i fischi del Bernabéu contro lo Schalke, già domato 2-0 a Gelsenkirchen nella gara di andata. Prima con Fuchs, al secondo gol in tre giorni dopo quello all'Hoffenheim in Bundes; poi con l'ex avvelenato, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, che solo in merengue e al Milan (ma lì giocava delocalizzato all'ala) non han capito abbastanza. Una traversa sull'1-1 poi due gol per il Cacciatore, l'ultimo ad arrendersi tra i ragazzi di Di Matteo. Sembrava una serata stregata per il real, mai così in difficoltà nella gestione-don Carlos. Col solito C...