Baye Moussa Keita's controversial "block" at the end of Syracuse's win over West Virginia Saturday afternoon. (Photo: Syracuse.com)

There’s never a dull weekend in the Big East Conference.

WVU continued its current slide, losing its second game in a row but head coach Bob Huggins doesn’t know if it should’ve ended the way it did. Down two with the final seconds of the game ticking off the clock, junior forward Deniz Kilicli appeared to have the game-tying bucket thanks to (what looked like) an obvious goaltending call on Syracuse sophomore Baye Moussa Keita.

But it wasn’t called. They called it a block, WVU got the ball back and Kevin Jones missed a last-second three to win the game to give the Orange a win.

Huggins, who is always great from some good quotes, had this to say on his postgame radio interview:

“Inexcusable. Our kids played their hearts out. We should be in overtime.”

• WVU has Pitt tonight in the Backyard Brawl. A loss would give the Mountaineers their first three-game losing streak since 2007 (Huggins’ first season). Mike Casazza of the Charleston Daily Mail put into perspective just how rare of a situation it is and how Huggins and some of the players think they will be able to handle the adversity following the tough loss.
• One more WVU tidbit, from the Interwebs. CBSSports.com kept West Virginia in its Top 25 (and one) as the “and one,” at No. 26 following losses to St. John’s and Syracuse.
• UConn got freshman point guard Ryan Boatright back after being held out for the second time this season due to an investigation by the NCAA. His return didn’t prove to be as big as it thought, though, as the Huskies lost to Notre Dame, 50-48. After missing three games, Boatright played 30 minutes and scored six points with two assists. His lawyer fired back at the NCAA for the way it handled the situation and released confidential information from the case.
• Off the topic of the Big East but on topic of the NCAA, New York Times Op-Ed columnist Joe Nocera wrote another fantastic piece on the flawed system that is the NCAA. After writing about Boatright last week, he tackled the case of Harvard women’s basketball player Temi Fagbenle.
• Back to the Big East now … Pitt continued to get back on track since it got Tray Woodall back in the lineup. After beating Providence Wednesday for their first Big East win, the Panthers took down No. 10 Georgetown Saturday. Woodall missed 11 games due to injury and Pitt has won two of three since his return. It is averaging more than 76 points per game with him and just a little more than 66 per game without him.
• After beating WVU Wednesday night, St. John’s almost pulled off a big upset over No. 6 Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium (which, if you haven’t heard, can’t get students to come to games anymore). Although Duke came away with the end, it sounded different in the postgame news conferences.
• A couple other interesting results: No. 18 Marquette was able to find a way to beat Villanova Saturday, and Cincinnati lost its third straight (this time to Rutgers). I can only assume Mr. Cronin isn’t too happy with where his team is heading right now after playing so well after the suspensions from the fight against Xavier earlier in the year.

Dunk of the Weekend:

Syracuse sophomore Dion Waiters had a monster dunk against WVU Saturday, check it out …

For TV fans:

Not related to Big East, WVU or college basketball at all really, but this is a fun thing to check out for hoops junkies who love 90’s television as well (like me).

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