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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2012
PAGE 9
NBA
Morris ticketed for fight outside Lawrence bar
Former Kansas men's basketball player Marcus Morris returned to Law-
Morrow.
fence this week end to watch the Jayhawks take on the Missouri Tigers on Saturday in the final regular season installment of the Border Showdown
Morris
Because of an incident that happened after the game, Morris will be making at least one more trip back to Lawrence to appear in court.
The fight allegedly took place at 2:37 a.m. on Sunday at The Cave. Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director of communications and media relations, said Kansas athletics will not be releasing a statement on the incident.
Matt Galloway
Rutgers beats Marquette in regular-season finale
BIG EAST
PISCATAWAY, N.J. — April Sykes scored 20 points and Khadijah Rushdan notched a double-double to lead No. 23. Rutgers past Marquette on Monday night in the regular-season finale for both teams, extending the Scarlet Knights' perfect record in the all-time series to 9-0.
Georgetown victorious on Senior Day
Monique Oliver added 17 points for Rutgers (21-8, 10-6 Big East), while Rushdan had 13 points and 11 rebounds. The Scarlet Knights have a first-round bue in this week's Big East tournament.
The teams were fairly close in the first half, with the Scarlet Knights taking a 35-30 lead into the break. But Oliver and Sykes combined to score the first nine points of the second half as Rutgers opened the period on a 9-0 run that put the game out of reach.
Associated Press
NCAA
Hoyas end three-game losing streak to Notre Dame in key Big East game
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Georgetown's Greg Whittington goes for the dunk during the first half of an NCAA basketball game against Notre Dame on Monday, Feb. 27, in Washington. No. 11 Georgetown beat No. 20 Notre Dame 59-41.
Clark finished with 13 points and six rebounds, while Sims had 12 points and five assists. While they have led the way all season for Georgetown (22-6, 12-5) on a roster with 10 freshmen and sophomores, there was plenty of help from the youngsters, as usual.
The Irish shot only 33 percent from the field overall, and no one scored more than the nine points from Eric Atkins and Scott Martin.
WASHINGTON — Playing at home for the last time, Jason Clark and Henry Sims combined for 25 points, 12 rebounds and six assists on "Senior Day," helping No. 11 Georgetown beat No. 20 Notre Dame 59-41 on Monday night in a key game for Big East tournament seeding.
Georgetown led by 10 points at halftime and kept pulling away. Wittington's 3 with about $8\frac{1}{2}$ minutes left capped a 9-0 run that made it 48-29 and pretty much sealed the victory.
Notre Dame (20-10, 12-5) lost its second straight following a school-record, nine-game Big East winning streak. It made 3 of 17 3-point attempts, after going 4 for 31 in a loss at St. John's on Saturday.
Clark and Sims left to a standing ovation with 1:43 remaining and Georgetown leading 59-36.
Greg Whittington contributed 15 points on 5-for-6 shooting, including 3 of 3 on 3-pointers, and another freshman, Otto Porter, had 10 rebounds.
Both the Hoyas and Fighting Irish are in the running for a top-four seeding and a double-bye into the quarterfinals of the conference tournament. Georgetown finishes its pre-
tournament schedule by playing at No. 8 Marquette on Saturday, while Notre Dame closes at home against Providence on Friday.
After the traditional pregame ceremony to honor Georgetown's departing players, Clark and Sims led the way, helping the Hoyas snap a three-game losing streak to the Irish.
After a decent start, both teams had plenty of trouble at the offensive end during the first half, a result not so much of tremendous defense but rather lackluster offense. Air balls, dropped passes and sloppy dribbling all led to wasted possessions.
Georgetown and Notre Dame combined to make 8 of their first 12 shots — a 67 percent clip. And then they went and made 3 of their next 16 shots — only 19 percent.
But a 7-0 stretch capped by Sims' layup made it 18-11 for the hosts. And that basket began a personal run for Sims in which he scored or assisted on 10 straight Hoyas points.
He made two free throws, passed to Clark on a backdoor cut for a layup, executed a perfect give-and-go to assist on Wittington's dunk, and sank a turnaround jumper to put Georgetown up 26-18.
When Clark drove for a basket as the shot clock expired, the lead was 28-18 with $ \frac{1}{2} $ minutes left in the first half, and that's where it remained until the start of the second.
Notre Dame was 1 for 6 on 3s in the half, and leading scorer Jerian Grant was 1 for 8 from the field. Those numbers continued trends from the team's loss Saturday, when Grant managed to collect only two points while shooting 1 for 9. He wound up 2 for 12 with eight points Monday.
Georgetown can, of course, play defense rather well. In its previous outing, at home on Saturday, Georgetown held Villanova to 28 percent shooting and won by 21 points.
For the second consecutive game, Porter was in Georgetown's starting lineup — and sophomore guard Markel Starks was not, apparently having found his way into the doghouse of
coach John Thompson III. On Saturday, Starks didn't play at all, even though Thompson said the player was healthy. On Monday, Starks entered about 5 minutes into the game.
NBA
Bryant breaks Jordan's career-points record during game
ORLANDO, Fla. — Kobe Bryant got the scoring record, Kevin Durant the MVP, and the West got the win — barely.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Even after that two piled up the points, the NBA All-Star game came down to a defensive play.
A bloodied Bryant scored 27 points, moving past Michael Jordan as the career scoring leader in the game. Durant had 36 in an MVP performance, and Blake Griffin's interception of LeBron James' pass secured the Western Conference's 152-149 win over the East on Sunday night.
"You know, you have some of the best competitors out on the floor at the same time," James said. "Not only me and Kobe, but D-Wade and Durant and (Carmelo Anthony) and (Chris Paul), and all the rest of the guys. We all wanted to win, and it came down to the last minute or last seconds."
James and the East cut a 21-point deficit to one in the closing seconds, but weren't able to move in front. James had 36 points and fellow Heat star Wade finished with a triple-double.
Bryant shook off Dwyane Wade's hard smack to his nose and was still on the floor to say something to James after he threw away a pass in the closing records.
Griffin scored 22 points for the West, which rang up 88 points in the first half, setting an All-Star record. But he won the game with his defense, picking off James' pass when the East had a chance to tie in the final seconds.
"It was fun," Durant said. "That's the type of All-Star game you want to see."
"When I tried to throw it late, that's what usually happens and it results in a turnover," James said. "Definitely wish I could have that one back."
Griffin then hit one free throw with 1.1 seconds left, and Wade
Bryant was bloodied by a hard foul from Wade and stayed in the game, but left to be evaluated afterward and did not speak to the media.
Durant's win left Bryant tied for the All-Star record with his four MVP awards. But he got a bigger mark in his 13th All-Star game.
was off on a 3-point attempt from the corner. He finished with 24 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, joining Jordan and James as the only players with All-Star game triple-doubles.
He broke Jordan's record of 262 points on a dunk with 47 left in
It nearly wasn't enough, as the East's comeback had the crowd filled with entertainers and athletes chanting for defense — never a part of the All-Star game vocabulary — in the final seconds.
the third quarter and now has 271 for his career. He passed Oscar Robertson (246 points) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (251) earlier in the game.
"That record he got tonight,
James hit two long 3-pointers in the final period, and the East had a chance when Bryant, with the crowd loudly booing, missed a free throw with 18 seconds left and the West up 151-149.
But New Jersey's Deron Williams was short on a 3-pointer, and after the East came up with it, James fired a pass into a crowd that Griffin intercepted.
with KD in the league, I don't know how long it's going to last," Wade said.
LEBRON JAMES Eastern Conference team
On a colorful night in Orlando, from pregame performer Nicki Minaj's pink and green hair to the neon sneakers many of the stars wore, Dwight Howard had nine points and 10 rebounds as the game's host.
"You know, you have some of the best competitors out on the floor at the same time."
Orlando in 20 years wasn't close after $2 \frac{1}{2}$ quarters. But players always say it gets competitive in the final five minutes, and James was again up for the challenge.
He hiked his scoring average to 25.9 points over his eight All-Star games, and someday he'll probably take the record Bryant set Sunday.
But he couldn't quite catch Kobe in the game.
"Being a competitor, no matter All-Star game or not, you don't want to get blown out," James said. "Of course not, when you're going against your peers and you're
The NBA's first All-Star game in
going against great players and you're playing with great players. I just wanted to try to pick it up and see if we could make a run at it, and we did."
With the 2-year-old Amway Center considered by many the finest arena in the league, the NBA brought its midseason showcase back to Orlando for the first time since the memorable 1992 game, when Magic Johnson was MVP three months after retiring from the league because of the HIV virus.
This one was once in jeopardy of being lost when the lockout lasted into late November. Without a settlement then, AllStar weekend may have been wiped out, as it was in 1999 following a work stoppage.
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James and Howard, wearing bright orange shoes, danced onto the stage for pregame introductions, Howard breaking into an enormous grin when fans gave him a thunderous ovation as the last All-Star introduced. He insists that he and Magic fans still have a love affair despite his trade request, understanding he still
The party was saved.
loves the city even if not his team, and urged everyone to ignore the trade talk for a weekend and have fun.
"We did it big for our city," he said in brief pregame remarks to the crowd before the game.
Then Andrew Bynum blocked his first shot attempt.
Howard and Derrick Rose ditched their orange sneakers in the second half — James kept his—and the East quickly got back into it, trimming 12 points off its deficit in less than 6 minutes. They even started to defend—Wade whacked Bryant so hard on a drive that the Lakers star needed a break between free throws to wipe blood from his nose before sinking it to tie Jordan.
The speedy Russell Westbrook had the East looking as if it was standing still late in the first half, and it was 88-69 at the break.
Williams scored 20 points for the East. Carmelo Anthony had 19. and Rose finished with 14.
Kevin Love, who won the 3-point contest on Saturday, scored 17 points for the West, which has won two in a row. Chris Paul had eight points and 12 assists.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kobe Bryant scored 27 points in his 13th NBA All-Star game, which gives him 271 career points. Bryant's new total break Michael Jordan's record of 262 career points.
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