A quick look at tonight’s game between No. 8 Marquette and DePaul in Chicago.

STARTING LINEUPS (Season stats in parenthesis):

Marquette (19-2, 8-0 Big East):

G Dominic James (11.5 ppg, 5.3 apg)

G Jerel McNeal (19.7 ppg, 4.6 rpg)

G Wesley Matthews (19.2 ppg, 5.5 rpg)

F Lazar Hayward (16.6 ppg, 8.5 rpg)

F Dwight Burke (2.8 ppg, 3.9 rpg)

DePaul (8-14, 0-9):

G Michael Bizoukas (2.4 ppg, 1.9 rpg)

G Dar Tucker (18.5 ppg, 5.3 rpg)

G Will Walker (12.3 ppg, 3.0 rpg)

F Matija Poscic (3.7 ppg, 3.4 rpg)

C Mac Koshwal (13.6 ppg, 10.0 rpg)

When these two teams last met, Marquette won 79-70 in Milwaukee but the win wasn’t overwhelmingly impressive. The Blue Demons stayed close down the stretch before continuing their winless Big East season.

After beating Notre Dame and Georgetown in succession last week, the Golden Eagles are riding an 11-game winning streak. A recent cbssportsline poll said “It’s starting to look like Marquette will never lose again. Ever.” I’m fairly certain they’ll lose again, but It probably won’t be tonight.

All the Golden Eagles need to do is make sure to neutralize sophomore center Mac Koshwal and force Dar Tucker to take irresponsible shots (he will). Beyond that, the Golden Eagles shouldn’t be looking ahead to South Florida, so Jerel McNeal, Dominic James and Wesley Matthews should be able to take care of things.

We’ll have more from this one as we go.

Not much in the way of an exciting start here at the Verizon Center. It took four minutes for the score to move beyond 2-2, and neither team made their play look pretty. After starting 1-for-8 from the field, the Hoyas finished 10-for-29 (34.5%), and the Scarlet Knights were even less impressive, shooting 31.6% on the half. The Scarlet Knights also turned the ball over 12 times.

Georgetown’s lead isn’t just the result of its opponent’s sloppy play. Seven of those Rutgers miscues were Georgetown steals, including a few impressive passes plucked out of the air. The Hoya defense also gets a lot of credit for the Scarlet Knights’ poor shooting. Georgetown didn’t allow many uncontested shots, forcing its opponent into difficult looks when it couldn’t create a turnover.

A big reason for Georgetown’s lack of offensive efficiency was the absence of DaJuan Summers. The junior picked up two fouls in the first four minutes and rode the pine after that. If he can stay out of foul trouble in the second half Georgetown should get a significant boost.

Georgetown will certainly be happy to return to the friendly confines of the Verizon Center after a demoralizing three game road trip that dropped the team from the top 25. Losers of five straight, the Hoyas have a great opportunity to bounce back against the Scarlet Knights, losers of nine of their past ten and second to last in the Big East standings.

After suffering at the hand of a veteran Marquette squad, Georgetown will face a similarly youthful team in Rutgers. Star freshman Mike Rosario leads the Scarlet Knights in scoring with 17.5 ppg, and fellow rookie Gregory Echenique is the team’s top rebounder with 8.5 rpg, to go along with his 9.5 ppg.

While Rutgers is one of the few teams in the Big East the Hoyas can look down at in the standings, the Scarlet Knights do have something Georgetown desires: momentum. Coming off a dominating victory over fellow basement-dweller DePaul, Rutgers will be the only team entering the Phonebooth on a positive note.

If the Hoyas want to emerge with their first win in almost three weeks, they will need to step up on defense. Georgetown’s offense certainly wasn’t great over the past five games, but defense looked like the difference maker in the losses. Greg Monroe and Co. will need to be more aggressive contesting inside shots. The Hoyas would be well-served by forcing Rutgers to knock down its jumpers. The Scarlet Knights are not a strong shooting team, converting just 29.3% of its three point attempts and 43% overall.

If Georgetown picks up its D and shoots as well as it did against Marquette, this could be the confidence-boosting win that puts the team back on track. But at this point every loss becomes potentially devestating to the team’s tournament hopes. A lot rides on a game whose outcome would have looked like a foregone conclusion a month ago.

The Panthers beat Robert Morris 92-72 last night in their first non-conference contest since Dec. 21st.

Although Pitt got off to a slow start, it was a dominating performance by the #6 Panthers who cruised to a 20-point victory behind a game-high 23 points from Sam Young.

DeJuan Blair recorded 8 rebounds and 18 points, and has scored at least 10 points in all but 4 games this season. Jermaine Dixon went 3-of-4 from behind the arc and finished with 15 points, while Levance Fields had a solid performance with 12 points and 4 boards.

It’s hard to believe Robert Morris lost by 20 points when the team shot over 50 percent from the field, foul line and the arc. Seinor Jeremy Chappell led the Colonials in scoring with 19 points.

Pitt has the rest of the working week off and will return to action on Saturday when they travel to DePaul. The Demons are the only team in the Big East yet to win a conference game.

Three Rutgers football players have been invited to this year’s NFL combine. According to a press release safety Courtney Greene and wide receiver Tiquan Underwood will take place in the NFL Combine.

Joining them will be the Big East’s all-time leading receiver, Kenny Britt, who chose to forgo his senior year at Rutgers to play in the NFL.

In other Rutgers news, incoming freshman defensive lineman Andre Civil will join safety Mohamed Sanu at Rutgers spring practice and has already enrolled in classes for the spring semester.

Civil (6’4″, 239-pounds) is a three-star recruit on Rivals.com from Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Earlier today the UConn Huskies (20-1, 10-1) were voted as the No. 1 team in the country in both major polls and tonight against No. 5 Louisville (17-4, 8-1) on the road, they proved it. UConn walked into Freedom Hall and ended the Cards’ nine game winning streak with an outstanding all around defensive performance led by 7-foot-3 center Hasheem Thabeet.

Though Thabeet finished with his usual four blocks in the contest, his ability to change shots was huge as the Huskies outscored the Cards 40-18 in the paint. Thabeet added 14 points and 11 rebounds.

Cards’ forward Terrence Williams was the lone bright spot for the U of L offense as the senior finished the game with a career high 26 points, but it wasn’t enough to off-set the UConn defensive strangle hold on the Cardinal offense. U of L finished the game shooting just 34% from the field while the Huskies connected on 47% of their shot attempts.

U of L got out to a quick start and actually led 25-24 with just over six minutes left in the first half, but after Louisville head coach Rick Pitino took out Williams for the final four and a half minutes, to protect his best player from picking up his third foul, UConn closed out the half on 15-2 run and took a 12 point advantage halfway through.

While Williams was the only Cardinal to score in double figures, UConn finished with four players, including Thabeet, to score more than 10. Senior forward Jeff Adrien led his team with 18 points and seven rebounds. Guards Jerome Dyson (14 points) and A.J. Price (11 points) rounded out the double figure scorer’s for the Huskies.  

Turnovers were again a problem for the Cards in this one, coming off Saturday’s win over WVU in which they turned it over a season high 26 times, as they committed 17 TO’s tonight against the Huskies.

For U of L to have had a serious chance of moving to 9-0 in the Big East, they were going to need 6-foot-9 forward Earl Clark to step up, but the junior finished with another less than stellar performance. Clark, who is projected as a potential NBA lottery pick in this year’s upcoming draft, finished with just 5 points and three rebounds on a 2-16 shooting performance .

In the end, the actual loss to the No.1 team in the nation doesn’t really hurt the Cards that bad in the long run. What really hurts is just how the Cards looked in losing their first conference game of the season. U of L was dominated in pretty much every facet of the game and are lucky that the score wasn’t even more lopsided than it was.

Credit has to go to UConn because after tonights win, they not only proved that are they the team to beat in the Big East, they just might be the beat come March in the NCAA Tournament.

The Cards will have some time to lick their wounds and work out some of their offensive deficiencies before they travel up to Madison Square Garden to take on St. John’s on Sunday. Louisville is still a very good basketball team, but they need to use this loss as a learning experience and realize that they must bring it every night or they can be beat by anyone.

After the first 20 minutes of play, the UConn Huskies have built up a 38-26 lead on t Louisville. The Huskies finished the final six minutes of the first half on a 14-2 run.

UConn has absolutely shut down the paint for the Cards behind the defensive presence of Haheem Thabeet. The Huskies have forced U of L to shoot just 34% from the field while shooting better than 53% themselves.

Jeff Adrien has led the Huskies with 15 points and five rebounds. Terrence Williams leads the Cards with 14, but was forced to watch UConn’s late half run from the bench due to foul trouble.

After four-star defensive tackle Isaac Holmes was seemingly between Pittsburgh and Marylnd, the Hoboken, N.J. native offered his verbal to Rutgers early Monday after a recent visit to the school.

Holmes, a 295-pounder, made 87 tackles and 10 sacks as a junior at Hoboken High School and is the second run-stuffing defensive tackle in the Rutgers Class of 2009 along with 335-pound Antwan Lowery.

St. John’s moved into a a three-way tie with Georgetown and Notre Dame in the Big East standings as the Storm improved to 3-6 in conference play with a 65-48 win over USF yesterday.

Sophomore Paris Horne continued his hot streak with a game-high 19 points and 4 steals. Horne’s effort was backed-up in the form of double-double from fellow sophomore Sean Evans (11 points, 10 rebounds).

9 of Horne’s 19 points came during an 18-2 run in the second half, which essentially broke the bulls back.

USF took a 40-38 lead with just under 13 minutes remaining in the second half. The Bulls were unable to capitalize, however, as they went the next 7:48 with out scoring a single point.

Dominique Jones led the Bulls with 16 points and 7 rebounds. Teammate Augustus Gilchrist followed Jones’ lead with 12 points and 4 boards.

The Bulls have lost five of their last six games.

St. John’s now sits at 12-9 overall.