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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
NEW YORK (AP) – Seton Hall is looking good and not looking back.
|  | | Andre Barrett (12 points) and his Seton Hall teammates had good reason to be happy. |
The Pirates, who didn't clinch a spot in the Big East tournament
until the last game of the regular season, advanced to the
semifinals with a 58-40 victory over Georgetown (No. 19 ESPN/USA Today, No 18 AP) on Thursday.
A season that started with a Top 10 ranking and then saw the
Pirates lose eight of nine games in one stretch and almost not even
qualify for the conference tournament has taken a sudden turn.
The Pirates (16-13) won their third straight game by opening the
second half with a 24-3 run to take control. They held the Hoyas
(23-7) to half their season scoring average in matching the fewest
points ever allowed in a Big East tournament game.
"Sometimes it isn't up to any of us to try to judge what the
timing of things should be," Seton Hall coach Tommy Amaker said.
"We're grateful we're in the position we're in right now. We wish
we could have done a lot of things early. You can't look back and
regret those kinds of things. We just know that things are moving
forward with us and it's funny how things can come around."
Andre Barrett had 12 points to lead Seton Hall, which went 5-11
in the conference. The Pirates weren't guaranteed a trip to Madison
Square Garden until they beat Connecticut in the regular-season
finale.
Seton Hall defeated St. John's 78-66 in the opening round and
then came up with a super defensive effort Thursday to advance to
Friday's semifinals against Boston College (No. 9, No. 10; 24-4), a team it
did not play during the season.
"As I just told the kids in the locker room, they very well
could be the best team in our conference," Amaker said of Boston
College, which beat Villanova 93-79 in the quarterfinals.
"I think they've had a great year and are playing confidently.
I know we're going to have our hands full having played two games
in two days."
The win was the third straight for the Pirates after losing
eight of nine.
The Hoyas, who had an opening-round bye and swept the season
series from Seton Hall – including a 99-91 victory that was the
most points ever allowed by the Pirates in Continental Airlines
Arena – led 26-25 at halftime.
But the Pirates scored the first 11 points of the second half to
take a 36-26 lead with 15:35 to play on a jumper by Barrett.
Georgetown missed 13 of its first 14 shots after halftime and
committed six turnovers in the 24-3 run that was capped by
Barrett's three-point play that made it 49-29 with 9:09 left.
Georgetown's 14 points in the second half set a Big East
tournament record for fewest. The old mark was 16, done three
times.
The only other time a team scored 40 points in a tournament game
was when Georgetown beat Miami by 27 points in the opening round in
1993.
"This was one of those games when you wake up in the middle of
the night and dream about having and hope you never have. We had it
today," Georgetown coach Craig Esherick said.
"We couldn't shoot the ball at all. We started well and played
well then we couldn't do anything right. I thought Seton Hall
played extremely well."
Eddie Griffin, Darius Lane and Ty Shine each had 11 points for
Seton Hall.
"We're playing good ball right now, playing together well,"
Lane said. "After Villanova (the last loss before the Connecticut
game) we had embarrassed ourselves and knew we had to play
together."
Lee Scruggs scored 12 points to lead Georgetown, which got two
points from its starters in the second half. The Hoyas, who had won
three straight and four of five, finished 17-for-58 from the field
(29.3 percent), including 6-for-28 (21 percent) in the second half.
"They'll be all right," Esherick said of his team. "The first
thing is a day off before we have to watch that tape. I don't want
to play this way again, certainly not in the next tournament we're
in."
It is Seton Hall's first appearance in the semifinals since
1994, when it lost to Georgetown.
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ALSO SEE
Men's College Basketball Scoreboard
Seton Hall Clubhouse
Georgetown Clubhouse
BC plays like Big East's best, leaves 'Nova on bubble
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Ty Shine hits the fast-break reverse layup off the pass from Darius Lane.
avi: 1263 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Lee Scruggs gets free above the baseline and rocks the rim with a 3-pointer.
avi: 1202 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Darius Lane flips the long pass in the air to Eddie Griffin for the allley-oop.
avi: 1004 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Andre Barrett drops the perfect bounce pass to a trailing Marcus Toney-El for the fast-break layup.
avi: 716 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
 Andre Barrett says the Pirates' needed to win.
wav: 284 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
Tommy Amaker says he's pleased to see his team playing well together.
wav: 413 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
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