McIsaac/Getty
Da'Sean Butler nails a shot beyond the arc, giving West Virginia a quarterfinal win over Bearcats. West Virginia senior forward
Da'Sean Butler banked in an off-balance 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the third-seeded Mountaineers a 54-51 win over 11th-seeeded
Cincinnati in the quarterfinals of the
Big East Tournament at the Garden. And after he put up the crazy shot over the outstretched arms of Cincinnati freshman and former Lincoln star
Lance Stephenson, Butler called it. "I did everything I could, I was all over him," Stephenson said.
"I even fouled him. But he got it up and he even called it a bank shot."That made the seventh-ranked Mountaineers (25-6) the only top four seed to survive yesterday's quarterfinals. They will face Notre Dame, which upset second-seeded Pittsburgh earlier in the night, in tonight's semifinal at 9.
"We saw the other teams lose; it was a warning," said West Virginia sophomore Kevin Jones, who finished with 17 points. "We didn't want to go out like that."
The Mountaineers could have very easily been the fourth victim last night. The Bearcats, who rallied from an 18-4 deficit to trail just 26-23 at the half, put together another late-game rally. The Mountaineers led by nine with 5:42 to play, but Stephenson scored six of his 19 points during the Bearcats' 13-4 run, which he capped with a 3-pointer that tied the game at 51 with 42 seconds to play.
Cincinnati, which won its first two games of the tournament by a combined four points, forced West Virginia to turn the ball over on a shot-clock violation with seven seconds to play, but the Bearcats gave it right back. Dion Dixon lost control of the ball in the backcourt off an inbounds pass, and his turnover gave the Mountaineers the ball with :3.1 left.
After taking the inbounds pass, Butler put up his shot from just inside the NBA 3-point line. "I took one dribble and shot," said the Newark product, who finished with 15points. "It felt good and it looked good as soon as it hit glass."
