The Golden Eagles didn’t take advantage of early Bulldogs problems, but figured out how to win at the end.
Marquette women’s basketball opened up Saturday’s game against Butler on FS1 with ELEVEN STRAIGHT STOPS. Six of those were Butler turnovers. All in the first six minutes of the game, and officially, because MU had the ball after that last stop, they held the Bulldogs scoreless for more than the first six minutes of the game.
Their reward for that kind of defense to open things up?
A 5-0 lead.
Marquette won the tipoff, so their possession after Butler’s 11th failure to score was MU’s 12th of the game. If they were up 12-0 at the end of that, would it have been amazing and great? No, but it would have been a reasonable and middle of the road, one-point-per-possession, type of lead.
Nope, 5-0, so when Cristen Carter got Butler on the board at the 3:31 mark of the first quarter, that made the score 5-2, and I think you can see the problem with this game now.
10-8 at the end of the first, 23-22 at halftime. Would 17-8 or 30-22 have been worlds better under that point-per-possession idea? Maybe, maybe not…. but it would have been better than Marquette finding themselves in a rock fight with a team that they handcuffed for six straight minutes out of the gate.
Butler found a really nice pile of rocks in the third quarter. Kilyn McGuff opened up the scoring after halftime with a three-pointer, and that put the Bulldogs out in front for the first time all afternoon. The two sides traded buckets for a minute, and a layup from Skylar Forbes had the Golden Eagles out in front 35-32 with 2:40 left in the period. That’s when Butler closed the quarter out on a 7-0 run, capped by another McGuff triple, and MU went into the final 10 minutes down by four, 39-35.
Remember those missing seven points from that mediocre 12-0 run that didn’t happen to start the game? Getting kind of important now, huh?
Olivia Porter did Marquette a big favor to open the fourth, scoring on an and-1 and converting the freebie to get the thing back to a one point game. But that still had the Bulldogs out in front, and after a brief back-to-back scoring situation for the Bulldogs — both on pretty easy layups if we’re being honest here — Butler was up 47-42 with 5:56 to go. Biggest lead of the game for the visitors, and MU’s lack of an offensive punch to go with their stellar defense was haunting them big time here.
Lee Volker cashed her only three-point make on four tries on the ensuing possession, so MU was far from dead here, just down two. Forbes knocked back a Volker long range miss to tie the game at 47 with five and change to play. I want to make this clear before we get further: Was this a dramatic close to the game? Sure. I won’t call it thrilling, because watching MU figure it out — you already know the final, it’s at the top of the page — was more cathartic than exciting.
Halle Vice came up with two buckets at the rim on either side of a Lily Zeinstra three-point miss — she was 0-for-4 on this day — to give the Golden Eagles an advantage, but Sydney Jaynes scored with 3:48 to go to even everything out at 51. McGuff scored, Butler fouled Forbes as she went to the rim after a Volker steal, tied at 53. Lily Carmody split a pair of freebies for BU, and then Jaidynn Mason had an entry pass to Vice in the post tipped away.
But the Bulldogs came up empty, and the refereeing gave the benefit of the doubt to Lee Volker on an attempted baseline drive. What I saw live from Section 112 is mostly what you saw on TV: Butler’s Carmody throwing herself in front of Volker and hitting the ground as Volker overextended her forearm. It looked a lot like a pushoff, but the baseline ref gave the foul to Carmody. Since fouls reset at the start of the fourth, that meant baseline out of bounds for Marquette. Inbounds to Forbes, curling cut for Volker, Marquette up 55-54.
Timeout Butler with 30.5 to play so they could advance the ball, and the shot attempt they got hit the side of the backboard, blocked by Vice officially. Rebound Butler, scramble, and Austin Parkinson called timeout. This is important, we’ll come back to it.
With 11 seconds left, Butler got a pretty good driving layup attempt by Karsyn Norman. But it bounced off, and McGuff flew in and fouled Forbes on the rebound attempt with 1.5 seconds left. On review, McGuff got a handful of hair and yanked Forbes down. Not maliciously, but that is what happened. There’s an argument for a flagrant foul here, to be honest. Timeout Marquette to advance the ball — not in the bonus yet because of that reset, remember — and BU fouls Forbes on the inbound.
Forbes calmly sank both free throws for the three point lead, and that was her eighth and final points in the quarter out of the 21 she had in the game. Remember that timeout that Parkinson called with 11 seconds left? Yeah, that was their last timeout of the game. So Butler’s chance to tie the game comes down to going as far down the length of the court that they can go in 1.5 seconds, as opposed to running a sideline out of bounds play for a catch and shoot.
What they got was Sydney Jaynes out in the middle of the three-point line and the logo, maybe 55 feet from the rim, no one anywhere near her. A perfect spot for an uncontested prayer, about the best spacing you could ask for….. and Jaynes pivots to look for a teammate to pass for the shot.
And has the temerity to flop her hands around as if to say “I can’t believe y’all let me down, I don’t know what I was supposed to do” while walking to the bench after the horn sounds.
This was not by any definitions a good game. It was, however, a win, and Marquette is now 2-1 in Big East play with only an expected defeat at the hands of UConn marring their record.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and Fox Sports?
Up Next: Marquette returns to action on Wednesday night when they travel to Omaha for their only matchup of the season with Creighton. 18 game league schedule means MU only gets the Jays on the road and only gets St. John’s at home. In any case, tipoff on Wednesday is set for 6pm Central, and FloSports has the broadcast. The Bluejays are 4-0 in Big East action and have won three straight after a 60-46 road win against Providence on Saturday. They’ve actually won 11 of their last 12, and you can’t fault them for losing to #1 UCLA.