Answer: Each team has a post player (or two) that is capable of taking over a game, either offensively or defensively.,”Aside from being the four teams ahead of No. 25 Marquette in the Big East standings, what do Georgetown, Louisville, Connecticut and Notre Dame have in common?

Each team has a post player (or two) that is capable of taking over a game, either offensively or defensively.

Georgetown has Roy Hibbert, who is averaging 13.1 points per game and leads the Hoyas with 50 blocked shots.

Connecticut is led by sophomore Hasheem Thabeet, who leads the Big East with 107 blocked shots and junior Jeff Adrien's 14.5 points per game.

Louisville has senior David Padgett, who has averaged 11.3 points per game despite missing 10 games with a knee injury this season.

And as Marquette fans know all too well, Notre Dame has Luke Harangody, the Big East leader in points per game with 20.4 per game.

In Marquette's 72-54 win over No. 22 Pittsburgh on Friday, senior Ousmane Barro scored 14 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. While that performance alone isn't likely to place Barro on the list of elite Big East big men, it did underscore one point—the Golden Eagles will need some post production down the stretch in Big East play.

"It felt good," Barro said of his second double-double of the season. "I was just trying to be aggressive, you know. They've got big guys down low, so I was just trying to match-up with them the whole game."

The Panthers entered the game second in the Big East in rebounding margin at +6.6, the Golden Eagles are 11th in the conference with a +1.9 margin. Even so, the Golden Eagles outrebounded Pittsburgh 36-33.

Barro's counterpart, Pittsburgh freshman DeJuan Blair, finished with just six points and five rebounds to go with four fouls.

"We really got beat in every aspect (of the game)," Pittsburgh head coach Jamie Dixon said. "I thought we had to outrebound them, and we didn't do that … our defense, both man and zone, was not up to our standards."

If Barro's performance against Pittsburgh was a surprise, it's only because for most of the season Lazar Hayward has been Marquette's only post presence. The 6-foot-6 sophomore leads the team in points with 13.6 per game and rebounds with 6.4.

But since conference play began, Barro has had a few good outings, including another 14-point output against Providence, a 19-point, 10-rebound effort against Cincinnati and a 12-rebound performance against Notre Dame.

And after being relegated to the bench for most of the 2007-'08 season—Barro started 34 games for the Golden Eagles last year—his play allowed him to supplant junior Dwight Burke in the starting lineup in each of the last three games.

"Ousmane is playing with a great deal of energy, confidence and playing within himself," Marquette head coach Tom Crean said. "He's doing a lot of excellent things."

The heralded Golden Eagles guards turned in a typically unpredictable performance, with junior Jerel McNeal's 17 points offsetting Dominic James' 2-of-11 shooting night. James did contribute 12 assists.

Still, the Golden Eagles were able to break back into the Associated Press Top 25 and keep pace with the top teams in the Big East with a balanced effort.

Marquette's post players "get, out of everybody, the most criticism that I've seen in my time here," McNeal said. "They get criticized day-in and day-out … Yeah our guards are good, but we know what those guys are capable of doing."

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