Butler 63, Syracuse 59: A year after boasting four Elite 8 teams and two squads in the Final Four, the Big East will settle for one in the final eight teams of the NCAA Tournament. Butler answered a Syracuse rally with one of its own to dispatch the top-seeded Orange and move on to the West Regional final. Syracuse, playing without Arinze Onuaku, had 18 turnovers (every player who appeared had at least one) and gave up a late 11-0 run which sealed its fate. Wesley Johnson led the way with 17. West Virginia, however, had no problems beating Washington, and will face Kentucky, which beat Cornell. more ›

West Virginia 60 Georgetown 58: Last night, West Virginia won the Big East tournament, defeating Georgetown. WVU's Da'Sean Butler is deemed "Da Man" by the Post—Butler had 20 points, including the game-winning shot with 4.2 seconds left—and he said, "It means the world to me. I grew up around this area.... That's my favorite team, the New York Knicks. I grew up watching this on television. To play so well here since I've been a freshman, it means the world to me." more ›

Georgetown 91, Syracuse 84: Top-seeded Syracuse waited until the third day to play its first game of the Big East tournament. It was a one-and-done. To make matters worse, Arinze Onuaku hurt his knee in the loss, but early signs point to the big man's being ready for the NCAA Tournament next week. Of course, the other story is Georgetown, which got 27 points from Chris Wright and its first win in three games this season against its archrival. more ›

Philadelphia 3 Islanders 2: It sounds awful, the Islanders have lost fifteen-straight to the Flyers. But, with the amount of times they play a year, the reality is the losing streak has only occurred over the past two years. Still, blowing a 2-0 lead and getting outshot 35-25 is never good. It’s also the third-straight loss for the Isles after a win coming out of the Olympic break. more ›

Former Knicks coach and current head coach of Big East powerhouse Louisville Rick Pitino is mired in an extortion scandal where it has come out that he had an affair inside a Kentucky restaurant and then paid for the woman to have an abortion. Karen Cunagin Sypher was indicted back in April of attempting to extort Pitino for $10 million. She had since responded to the charges with her own claims that the coach had raped her inside a restaurant and at a second location in 2003. Now the Louisville Courier-Journal obtained police interviews where Pitino admits to having sex with her at the restaurant after its employees had left; an assistant coach on-hand also told police that he heard "only the sounds of two people that seemed to be enjoying themselves during a sexual encounter." The Long Island native Pitino, a married father of five and Catholic who has a priest travel around with his team, then admitted to paying $3,000 for Sypher to have an abortion because she did not have health insurance, an anecdote unlikely to be brought up by the president in his current town hall meetings. Sypher pleaded not guilty to the extortion charges and prepares to go for trial. Sources say Pitino has no plans to take a leave of absence from Louisville. more ›

Forty-eight hours into the NCAA Tournament and 32 teams have already been sent packing. But that's why they call it March Madness, baby (according to Dick Vitale). With only West Virginia suffering an upset to Dayton, the Big East marched ahead into the second round with five teams still alive. UConn and Villanova both tip off this afternoon, the former with Head Coach Jim Calhoun rested from illness and back in the fold. While most of the lower-seeded regional teams received their expected exits in the first round, Albany's Siena took down Ohio State in two overtimes last night. They will now look for a real Cinderella story against top-seeded Louisville tomorrow. And this has not been the week for the president to talk about athletics as the brackets he filled out are not looking too hot so far. After a day where half his picks were eliminated, he ended up 19-for-32 in his first round predictions. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer calls Obama's Midwest region "a disaster." At least apologizing to Coach K beats eating crow to Sarah Palin. more ›

• Louisville 76 Syracuse 66: The Orange's run came up one half short. Syracuse led by eight at intermission but could not sustain it against the pressure of Rick Pitino's Louisville squad. The Cardinals become the first Conference USA crossover team to win the Big East title. Jim Boeheim's crew basically played five games in three days. A win over Seton Hall ended in regulation, but the victory over Connecticut needed six overtimes and was followed by a single-overtime win over West Virginia. Louisville very well could end up as a No. 1 seed. In fact, the Big East could have three such teams, with Pittsburgh and UConn following suit. That will be revealed Sunday at 6 p.m.
• Devils 3, Canadiens 1: Montreal partisans went from booing their own team's incompetence to cheering a prodigal son on tying a legend. Martin Brodeur bagged his 551st win in his hometown, tying Patrick Roy for the most all-time by an NHL goaltender. As soon as the game ended, the fans, not happy with their struggling team's performance, let loose a long standing ovation for Brodeur. The well-earned ovation -- talked over from start to finish by commentator Chico Resch, by the way -- celebrated a player who missed almost four months with a biceps injury. But he's in fine form now.
• Flyers 4, Rangers 2: Some signs of life on the power play really would help the Rangers. They went 0-for-4 with a man advantage in this one. Three of those came after the Rangers fell behind 2-1 in the second period, but they couldn't capitalize. In fact, the Rangers, who play the Flyers at home Sunday, had only 16 shots in the final two periods.
• Bruins 2, Islanders 1: A matchup of the best and the worst in the Eastern Conference went as expected. Mark Streit had the lone New York goal, which came in the second period.
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• Too bad Knicks games aren't this exciting or well-played. The busiest -- and best -- day of the Big East schedule got started with Georgetown's record-setting win over Villanova, which is now squarely back on the NCAA Tournament bubble. The Hoyas won without any points from Roy Hibbert. Those tournament-record 17 3-pointers -- on 28 attempts -- helped more than cancel it out in a 83-62 win.
• The Hoyas will get the Moutaineers of West Virginia, which rode Joe Alexander's 34 points -- two of which came on a sick dunk over Stanely Robinson -- in its win over Connecticut. That game was the first in which won by the team in the darker jersey -- the lower seed. If Bob Huggins' team wasn't in good shape for the NCAA Tournament, it is now. The Huskies, however, lost a chance to help their seeding.
• The first night game had perhaps the most local flavor. Louisville has its share of New York players, and coach Rick Pitino was born in the city and went to St. Dominic's High School in Oyster Bay. Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon loves to recruit around New York and loves to bring his Panthers to New York. Maybe St. John's should get relegated, because the Panthers, including Brooklyn product Levance Fields perform better at the Garden than does the Red Storm. With Thursday's overtime win, they're now 4-0 there this season, with wins over Duke, St. John's and Cincinnati on Wednesday coming earlier.

Is it going to be Florida’s year again? Can the likely #1 pick in this year’s NBA draft, Greg Oden, lead Ohio State to a championship? Is Georgetown ready to return to elite status? These questions and many more will be answered over the next three weeks as March Madness begins. more ›

Jaromir Jagr missed the entire third period because of a leg injury and his status is unknown heading into today's huge game against Carolina. more ›

The Islanders controlled the game for most of the first two periods and took a 1-0 lead off of a goal by Simon. But, the Rangers rallied and the newest Ranger, Paul Mara, scored off of the power play to tie the game at one. more ›

Start with the defensive effort by the entire team, which was nonexistent until Malk Rose showed up in the third quarter. Seattle shot 52% for the game, which is inexcusable. more ›

Thursday it paid off again as the power play tallied three goals and the latest addition, Pascal Dupuis, scored a goal on a great hustle play. more ›

In keeping with our lists of events from 2006, here are some of the sports stories that Gothamist found compelling in the past year. It ranges from the playoff disappointment from the Mets and the Yankees to the welcome performances of last season's Rangers, this season's Jets and Rutgers. more ›

What the Yankees have, the Mets must also have. At least when it comes to television networks. Today, Sterling Entertainment, Time Warner, and Comcast launch SportsNet New York, a 24-hour regional sports network. The network will carry as many as 125 Mets games in its first season and will be the "official" TV home of the New York Jets. Of course, they won't be carrying any actual Jets games, but that's a minor detail. In addition to the Mets and Jets, the channel will carry basketball and football games from the Big East and Big Ten. That's great news for Gothamist as we can't get enough Big Ten action. more ›

The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament has lost its first team. Last night, Monmouth defeated Hampton 71-49 in the play-in game. It's Monmouth's fourth trip to the big dance and its first victory. Their reward? A trip to Philadelphia to play Villanova. While Phily might ordinarily be a great place to play an opening round game if you're from the West Long Branch, New Jersey school, Villanova is less than 20 miles away. That should be a nice home-court advantage for the Wildcats. more ›

For a week, the Syracuse Orange used a label of "overrated" to motivate their run to the Big East title. Now, as Big East champions, they'll sit and wait to see how much they helped their seeding with a win over Pittsburgh in the championship game. Last year, West Virginia, like Syracuse, sat on the Big East bubble entering the conference tournament. The runners-up got a seven seed, and Gothamist thinks Syracuse can do better than that. West Virginia clearly proved better than its seeding, and Syracuse could easily make the Sweet 16. more ›

Syracuse could have taken it easy after knocking off Connecticut, confident a win over the nation's top-ranked team secured them an NCAA tournament berth. Pittsburgh could have rested after taking care of archrival West Virginia in their quarterfinal game. Even with nothing meaningful to play for except a bump in seeding, both underdogs lived to fight another day in the Big East semifinals Friday. Syracuse rallied to top Georgetown 58-57, and Pittsburgh crushed second-ranked Villanova. The two teams play for the Big East championship on Saturday to cap what has been a upside-down tournament. more ›

Gerry McNamara won a national title in his freshman year at Syracuse and he wasn’t going to miss the tournament in his senior year. McNamara hit a game tying three-pointer with 10 seconds left to force overtime in Syracuse’s 86-84 upset over UConn in the Big East Tournament. more ›

If it wasn't a big enough spectacle before, the Big East tournament now has even more power to its punch. Starting today at Madison Square Garden, the league's top 12 (out of 16) battle it out for the conference's tournament title and the berth in the NCAA tournament that comes with it. Of course, most of the teams are playing for seeding, but a few are on the bubble. more ›

To beat Villanova at home, a team would have to play flawless basketball, or at least close to it. When West Virginia knocked off the Wildcats earlier this year, they used scorching three-point shooting. St. John's didn't play perfect basketball, and their shooting ended up far from accurate in a 65-52 loss at Villanova Wednesday. The Red Storm did a good job of keeping it close, but not of making Villanova sweat. They'll need a win over Rutgers on Sunday to have a shot at making the Big East tournament. Twelve of the 16 teams advance. more ›

With a victory over Seton Hall in their final regular season game at Madison Square Garden, the St. John's Red Storm can still entertain thoughts of returning there for the Big East tournament. Their 58-47 win Tuesday makes it a possibiliy they can earn one of the berths given to the top 12 teams in the 16-team conference. St. John's finishes with Villanova on the road (a likely loss) and Rutgers at home. more ›

After beating Pitt at home three weeks ago, St. John's appeared to have a good shot to avoid the pileup that is the bottom of the Big East conference. Since then, the Red Storm have lost five straight, including Thursday's 64-41 loss at Georgetown. As Georgetown coach John Thompson III put it, St. John's had "a bad night." Whether the recent collection of bad nights will cost St. John's a chance at the Big East tournament remains to be seen, but if they want to change their fortunes, the Red Storm had better start playing better soon. more ›

As conference play continues, St. John's Big East conference continues to make its claim to the title of best conference in the country. Given the talent of the teams at the top, the Red Storm have played well. Unfortuantely for Norm Roberts' squad, playing well was not enough for the second straight game. West Virginia held off St. John's Sunday days after the Red Storm hung with top-ranked Connecticut on the road Wednesday. more ›

As impressive a week as St. John's had last week, defeating Louisville and Pittsburgh at home, the Red Storm could hardly have hoped to beat Connecticut on the road Wednesday. They didn't. After hanging with the nation's top-ranked team for a half, St. John's lost in Storrs 66-50. The Huskies outscored the visitors by 15 points in the second half and took control after two ejections with a 15-4 run. more ›