Muskies move on,Kent State ice cold and Maryland bows in NIT

The Xavier Musketeers rallied from a nine point halftime deficit to end the miraculous run of the Georgia Bulldogs and eliminated them 73-61 in their first round game in Washington.
Josh Duncan's 20 points (11 from the free throw line) paced the Muskies,who outscored the Dawgs 27-3 from the charity stripe.
Derrick Brown added 19 points as well as 11 boards to key the comeback.
The free throw disparity appeared to come from Xavier driving to the basket,while Georgia preferred to fire up jumpers from the perimeter.
Xavier will take on the 6 seeded Purdue Boilermakers in Washington tomorrow at 4:40 with a trip to the Sweet Sixteen on the line.

The Kent State Golden Flashes were one of those quiet "sleepers'" that so many people picked to win that they weren't sleepers anymore by the time that the ball was tipped.
After a half,all of those people knew that it was all over as the Flashes scored a meager 10 points in the opening half,throwing all hope away in a not as close as the score indicates 71-58 loss to UNLV.
Mike Scott led KSU with a double double of 14 pts and 10 rebounds.
Kent State finished with an excellent 28-7 record on the season.

Syracuse blew open a close game in the second half and ended the season of Maryland 88-72 in the NIT second round in Syracuse.
James Gist led Maryland with 23 points and 11 rebounds in his final game as a Terrapin,ending a fine career.
Maryland finishes a disappointing season at 19-15.

Bullpen Notes

A what goes around comes around note,the Washington Nationals released righthanded pitcher John Patterson yesterday.
Long time readers may remember Patterson blowing off fans last year in his rehab outing at Frederick in order to stand alone in the bullpen doing nothing.

Congrats to Duke on their big 1 point win over Belmont.
Is it me or is "Coach K"'s teams slowly starting to look like his mentor Bob Knight's later Indiana teams with lots of hype and pub and starting down the road of losing to lesser teams in the tourney every year?
Duke is not to that point yet,but something to keep an eye on.

New Jersey plays the New York Islanders tonight in an important game at 7.
At this point in the season,they are all important!

Photo Credits
Xavier Fans-Ernest Coleman-Cincinnati Enquirer