NEW YORK — The Big East’s day of quarterfinal upsets ended with an unlikely long shot.
West Virginia became the only one of the conference’s top four seeds to advance to the semifinals when Da’Sean Butler took an inbounds pass and banked in a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the seventh-ranked Mountaineers a 54-51 victory over Cincinnati on Thursday night.
The third-seeded Mountaineers (25-6) will face seventh-seeded Notre Dame, which beat second-seeded Pittsburgh, on Friday night.
The other semifinal will have eighth-seeded Georgetown, which eliminated top-seeded and third-ranked Syracuse, against fifth-seeded Marquette. The Golden Eagles beat fourth-seeded and 10th-ranked Villanova.
The top four teams in the 16-member conference were given double byes to the quarterfinals. Combined with last season’s tournament, the first when all the schools were invited to New York, the top four seeds have a 3-5 record in the quarterfinals.
“I’m not a fan of the double bye but I don’t know that that had that much to do it with it,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said of the day of upsets. “We played pretty well early. ... I thought we had a chance to kind of break their back and we kind of let up.”
The Mountaineers did take the opportunity to break the hearts of the Bearcats.
“Just right now I feel really bad for my players,” Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin said. “They deserved a much better ending. Win, lose or draw, it’s a tough way to lose a game when a guy banks in a shot.”
Cincinnati (18-15) had a chance to win the game, but Dion Dixon lost the ball along the sideline with 3.1 seconds remaining to give West Virginia the final shot.
“He just got it in a hurry,” Cronin said. “We would have liked him to catch it. ... He turned and dribbled it too fast. He was out of control before he even put it on the floor. I feel bad for him. He’s devastated right now.”
Butler finished with 15 points, while Lance Stephenson led the Bearcats with 19 points.
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West Virginia’s Da’Sean Butler, center, is mobbed by teammates Devin Ebanks, left, and Kevin Jones after shooting the game-winning 3-pointer against Cincinnati Thursday night in New York. Associated Press
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