Vaughn's 'off' night

Deonta Vaughn said he wasn't frustrated Saturday night when he was unable to score. As he sat on the bench for long stretches at a time, he said he was content to cheer on his teammates, who were doing fine without him.

That sounds nice, but it's hard to swallow. First of all, his teammates, with the exception of John Williamson, weren't doing so well without him. Second, Mick Cronin said he could tell Vaughn was getting down on himself, feeling that he was letting his teammates down.

“Sometimes he puts too much pressure on himself,” Cronin said, “and you can understand why when you look at the configuration of how much he’s had to score for us. It’s a lot of pressure on him night in and night out to produce for us. It’s a lot to ask of a guy to never have an off night. But you saw the real Deonta Vaughn in overtime. That’s the guy that’s really got us to the position that we’re in.”

With his 20.4-point average, Vaughn accounts for roughly one-third of UC's scoring average in Big East play. That's quite a burden to put on one player, which is why Cronin was so happy to see Williamson put up 22 points against Rutgers.

It's a tribute to Vaughn's mental toughness that, despite the struggles he endured during regulation, he bounced back to score 13 points in overtime. Not many players could hang in there the way he did.