Rush The Court

Welcome to the first day of RTC’s coverage of the Big East Tournament, live from Madison Square Garden. Today, we will be bringing you a live-blog as UConn starts its foray through the Big East Tournament in an attempt to move themselves back into bubble consideration. The Huskies have been a tough team to peg. They beat then No. 1 Texas without head coach Jim Calhoun only to lose five of their next six, including an ugly loss at home to Cincinnati that seemingly knocked them out of any and all tournament talk. But a fire was lit under this club after the loss to Cincy, and the Huskies went on to win their next three games, which included Ws at Villanova and at home against West Virginia, to put themselves right back into the mix. So how did they follow that up? With losses in three straight to take themselves off what is one of the weakest bubbles in recent memory. What’s worse is that Jim Calhoun benched his three seniors — Gavin Edwards, Jerome Dyson, and Stanley Robinson — at the end of the South Florida game for what seemed like apathy on the part of the Husky “leaders.” Calhoun has not yet announced who will be starting today. St. John’s is not a bad basketball team. They have some athletes, they have some size, and they have one of the most underrated players in the Big East in DJ Kennedy. UConn will have their work cut out for them if they want to climb into the NCAA tournament conversation again.  Join us this afternoon for the action.