Associated Press
The college basketball roundup …
NEW YORK ó Villanova began to resemble the Final Four contender many people expected it to be in the first half Tuesday night.
The Wildcats looked more like the team that had lost four straight in the second half.
Anthony Crater scored on a driving layup with 5.1 seconds remaining, and a last-ditch shot by Maalik Wayns at the buzzer clanked off the rim, allowing South Florida to stun the 10th-seeded Wildcats 70-69 in the Big East tournament.
“I don’t think any of us have ever finished a season this way,” Villanova coach Jay Wright lamented afterward, “so we’ve got to get their heads right.”
Wayns finished with 24 points for the Wildcats (21-11), who slipped from No. 6 in the nation earlier this season all the way to the first round of the Big East tournament.
Marquette 87, Providence 66
NEW YORK ó Darius Johnson-Odom scored 23 points and Jimmy Butler added 19 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists to lead Marquette to an 87-66 victory over Providence on Tuesday night in the opening round of the Big East tournament.
The 11th-seeded Golden Eagles (19-13), considered by many to be the last of the 11 teams from the Big East with a chance at making the NCAA tournament’s field of 68, will play seventh-seeded and 20th-ranked West Virginia (20-10) in the second round on Wednesday night.
SUN BELT FINAL
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. óAfter a Arkansas-Little Rock steal secured the 64-63 win, the Sun Belt’s Player of the Year Solomon Bozeman was able to begin celebrating the school’s first trip to the NCAA tournament in 21 years.
HORIZON FINAL
MILWAUKEE ó Matt Howard scored 18 points and Shelvin Mack added 14 to lead Butler to a 59-44 victory over Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Tuesday night for its third Horizon League tournament title in the past four years.
SUMMIT FINAL
SIOUX FALLS S.D. óOakland made the NCAA tournament with a 90-76 win over Oral Roberts.
IVY
PHILADELPHIA ó There is no early admission to the NCAA tournament for Princeton or Harvard.
It’s a tie for the title and the brainy Ivy Leaguers are set for their toughest test yet: A one-game playoff for the outright conference championship that automatically puts the winner into the 68-team field.
The Tigers forced a share of the championship and the playoff with a 70-58 win over Penn on Tuesday night. Princeton and Harvard will play Saturday at Yale’s John J. Lee Amphitheater in New Haven, Conn., in a one-game playoff for the league’s automatic berth to the NCAA tournament.