Filed under: Notre Dame, Seton Hall, Big East Tournament

FanHouse Big East senior writer Brett McMurphy is in New York breaking down every game of the Big East tournament.

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NEW YORK -- Was Notre Dame's 68-56 victory against Seton Hall an NCAA elimination game? Nonsense, said Notre Dame coach Mike Brey and Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez.

"How about this being promoted as a [NCAA] play-in game?" Brey said.

"You know what? Right now nobody is going to talk about Seton Hall. Just give it a few days. Keep Seton Hall on the board. Just keep Seton Hall on the board. I know everybody knee-jjerks. Give it two days and come back and look at the big picture."

Gonzalez also was happy to politic about his club's NCAA tournament resume.

"I know that for some reason there's all these gurus and experts that listen to what everybody else says," Gonzalez said. "And they say, 'Well, if Notre Dame wins, they're in. If Seton Hall wins, they're out.' "

Gonzalez then went on to point out Seton Hall has a better RPI than Notre Dame, played a tougher schedule and had fewer bad losses.

Filed under: Steelers

Ben Roethlisberger told police there was no sexual intercourse with the woman who is accusing the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback of assault, a Pittsburgh television station reported on its Web site Thursday night.

Citing unnamed sources, KDKA-TV reported Roethlisberger conceded to Milledgeville, Ga., police the night of the incident that he had contact with the 20-year-old college student, but said a sexual act was not consummated inside the dance club. Roethlisberger said the woman injured her head after she slipped in the bathroom.

The accuser immediately reported the incident to police and was treated at an area hospital. TMZ.com reported Thursday that police have taken possession of the security tapes from the Capital City Night Club.

"We intend to finish this case in a way that neither his liberty nor his future is damaged," Roethlisberger's attorney Ed Garland told KDKA-TV.

The Atlanta law firm hired by the family of the accuser has asked for for discretion as the case progresses.

"Their daughter has done the right thing and reported this matter to the police," lawyer Lee Parks said in a statement. "She has been, and will be, available to the authorities to assist them in the criminal investigation. While the matter is under investigation, we ask you to respect her privacy, keep her name out of the press and allow the family space and time to heal."

Filed under: Browns, NFL Free Agency, NFL Rumors

The Cleveland Browns might be starting to bring more clarity to their jumbled quarterback situation.

The team has set up a visit with free agent Jake Delhomme for Thursday, FanHouse has confirmed. The scheduled visit was first reported by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, though Delhomme's agent, Rick Smith, said via e-mail he could not confirm or deny the trip.

Carolina waived Delhomme last week after he spent seven years as the Panthers' starting QB. Delhomme took the Panthers to the Super Bowl in 2003, the NFC Championship game following the 2005 season and the playoffs in 2008.

Filed under: Cubs, Mariners

MESA, Ariz. -- To hear Milton Bradley tell it, nearly everybody associated with the Chicago Cubs doesn't celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Team executives. Manager Lou Piniella. The fans.

Especially the fans.

They all are racially insensitive, Bradley suggested during an ESPN television interview, and for reasons I'll give later, I was torn by the whole thing. Now I'm less so after I huddled with baseball Hall of Famer Billy Williams, an old acquaintance, who was among the first African-American players for the Cubs.

I'm not saying Bradley is right, but I'm also not saying this is another case of Milton being Milton, which often isn't pretty.

I'm saying ... let's just wait.

Filed under: Spring Training

FORT MYERS, Fla. --There are few scarier sights on a baseball field than a shattered bat spinning awkwardly toward a player's head.

Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon saw it happen Wednesday. Again. His pitcher, lefty David Price, avoided serious injury when the maple bat of Boston's Adrian Beltre shattered and zoomed toward his head.

Afterward, Maddon said maple bats are becoming the "Claymore mines of baseball.'' A Claymore mine, just for reference, is a directional antipersonnel mine used by the U.S. military in ambushes and against enemy infantry.

Price escaped with just an abrasion on his right palm near his thumb. Maddon vented about the use of maple bats after the game, saying the next time, or sometime after that, someone else won't be as lucky.

Filed under: Pistons

There's gunk clogging up the Pistons. Lots of it.

Gone are the days when Detroit would cruise annually to the Eastern Conference finals. Now, the Pistons are on a road to nowhere.

You can't say this team is rebuilding. It used gobs of salary-cap room last summer on ill-fated signees Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva when the Pistons could have waited until the big free-agency summer of 2010 to try to lure a real big-time player (Chris Bosh?).

The city of Detroit has been falling apart during this tough economy. OK, so the Pistons play in Auburn Hills. They've just brought more despair to the suburbs.

"It's sad,'' Denver point guard Chauncey Billups said of the Pistons, 22-41 and losers of six of their past seven.

Filed under: NBA Expert Chats, Fantasy Basketball

We're in the home stretch. Week 21 is just around the corner, so now it's time to prepare for the playoffs. The keys to winning playoff basketball in fantasy hoops is to know the schedule and to focus on five specific categories. All you need to do is win five categories, right? The teams with the best schedules heading into the playoffs are the Wizards, the Rockets and the Spurs. Each team plays 16 times over the four-week playoff period.

You should, however, note the mess that is the San Antonio Spurs. The numbers add up, but the matchups don't. They play five sets of back-to-backs the rest of the way, and all but four of their games are against teams that are currently in the playoffs. This is going to be a tough run for Tim Duncan owners. We already know about Tony Parker being out and George Hill stepping in at the point, but this could be the chance for Richard Jefferson to finally pay dividends. Or at least it seems like he owes us that much.

Join the chat on Wednesday at 6PM ET.