The Golden Eagles didn’t learn their lesson after losing to Xavier, and it came back for revenge on National Marquette Day.
Precisely two weeks ago, Marquette men’s basketball fell behind Xavier by 19 points in the second half and ended up with a two point loss at the final horn. At the time, I pointed out that Marquette’s problem was that they had to learn the oldest lesson in the book: Don’t fall behind by that many points and just expect to win a basketball game no matter how hard you try after the fact.
Here’s the problem: They didn’t actually learn that lesson then.
That was evident on National Marquette Day on Saturday night at Fiserv, as #25 UConn took a 22 point lead late in the first half and never let the Golden Eagles get closer than six points for the entire second half on their way to a 77-69 victory over MU.
Was a lot of the second half played with a single digit margin? Sure. Did that matter in the slightest? No, not at all. Marquette trailed by 22 late in the first half because the Huskies shot 50% on three-pointers in the first 20 minutes. They held Marquette at bay without ever letting the game get closer than two possessions by shooting — and this is not a joke, I am reading directly off the box score — 85.7% on threes in the second half.
You can’t trail by 22 points AND let that kind of shooting go on. UConn shot 13-for-23 on twos for the game, which is also not ideal but not the real problem here. UConn was so white hot that it ultimately did not matter than the Huskies turned the ball over TWENTY-FIVE TIMES in this game. 29 of Marquette’s 69 points came off of UConn turnovers, a mark of 1.16 points per turnover generated possession. That’s not too shabby, especially when you consider that the value of scoring like that is higher than just the points themselves because you just shut your opponent out.
And not a single bit of that turnover production mattered a dang bit. One of the 10 best turnover rate nights in the KenPom.com era paired with the fourth worst effective field goal percentage in the KenPom.com era. It’s the only time in KP history where Marquette has forced a turnover on 35.6% of possessions or better and lost.
The real bummer of it all? I thought Marquette was going to be fine in the early going. UConn jumped out to a 14-4 lead in less than four minutes, but I said “hey, look, yeah, the Huskies haven’t missed a shot yet, but it’s Hassan Diarra and Jaylin Stewart hitting those threes. Those guys are shooting 27% and 33% behind the arc this season. They’re not gonna hit that much for the next 36 minutes. Just keep defending Solo Ball and Alex Karaban.”
I was right, by the way. Diarra and Stewart finished the game a combined 4-for-4 behind the arc, with all four buckets in that opening run. MU did a good enough job on Karaban, holding him to 1-for-4.
Solo Ball? May as well call him Triple Ball, because he went 7-for-9. Felt like about 12-for-10, and yes, I know what I typed. He hit three of his seven in the final 11 minutes, pushing MU’s deficit from single digits to double digits on the first two and turning a six point game to a nine point game with 1:48 to go on the last one. He finished with 25 points and 11 rebounds, and tip of the cap to that young man.
How about some highlights, such as they are, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and Fox Sports?
Up Next: Well, it’s not getting easier. The Golden Eagles will spend next week playing road games, and it’s two doozies on deck. First up is at St. John’s on Tuesday with the Johnnies riding an eight game winning streak after escaping against Providence earlier on Saturday. STJ is now a full game up on MU in the Big East standings. After that is a weekend visit to Creighton, but we’ll worry about that on Wednesday.
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook: AnonymousEagle
Instagram: AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky: AnonymousEagle