Posted Friday, March 9th 2012 @ 9pm
NEW YORK (AP) -- Sean Kilpatrick keyed Cincinnati's early 3-point barrage and scored 18 points as the Bearcats held on for a 71-68 victory over No. 2 Syracuse on Friday night in the semifinals of the Big East tournament.
The fourth-seeded Bearcats (24-9) will meet the Louisville-Notre Dame winner in Saturday night's championship game at Madison Square Garden.
To get there, they ended the 11-game winning streak of the top-seeded Orange (31-2). They did it with an incredible shooting performance over the opening 14 minutes of the game when they took a 17-point lead, and then by holding on as Syracuse was able to get within one point in the final seconds.
This was Cincinnati's seventh win over a ranked team this season, the most in the country.
Dion Waiters had 28 points for Syracuse.
