The Golden Eagles come up on the short end of the stick in their final regular season road game of the year.
If you missed Wednesday night’s Marquette/Connecticut game at Gampel Pavilion, well, you missed a hell of a contest. UConn led for 21 minutes, Marquette led for 15 minutes, UConn led by as many as seven with just under eight minutes to play, Marquette was up as many as six right out of the gate to start the second half…. Heck of a basketball game to watch……….
…… if you’re a neutral party.
If you’re a UConn fan, you’re thrilled by the result. It’s a win over a ranked opponent, it’s the Huskies’ third straight win, something that they haven’t accomplished since they started Big East play 4-0 to wrap up an eight game winning streak, it eases the pain of getting hammered by St. John’s back on February 23rd, and it takes a little bit of the anxiety out of hosting a Seton Hall team that beat you in the first meeting this season.
If you’re a Marquette fan…. well, it’s better than whatever the hell happened at Villanova a week and a half ago, right? You’re stuck staring at your TV as FS1 cuts to the Wyoming/UNLV game thinking “If…. if…. if….”
If so many things.
If guys not named David Joplin shoot better than 0-for-16 from behind the three-point line. If Marquette generates more than eight turnovers from the Huskies. If MU does better than giving up 12 offensive rebounds to UConn in the second half, which probably doesn’t happen if Ben Gold doesn’t pick up his first two fouls of the game in the first three minutes of the second half…. and then get his third with 15:06 to go.
And yet.
After all of that.
Kam Jones gets to the rack twice 40 seconds apart with Stevie Mitchell hauling in a defensive rebound in between them, and it’s a one point game, 67-66 UConn, with 46 seconds left to play. Get one stop, go down to the other end, make one shot, run screaming to the airport, and fly home with a win.
It was right there for them to win, even after all the misfortunes, even after the 10-0 UConn run that gave the Huskies their largest lead of the game with 7:49 to play.
And MU’s defensive rotations led to Alex Karaban, a guy who is Going Through It this season (35%, 30% in Big East play) but a guy who has hit big shot after big shot after big shot on two national championship teams (40% and 38% his first two years) and a guy who was 2-for-5 already in this game, open enough to get a clean look from long distance.
Swish. Huskies by four, 25 seconds left. Kam misses a three, MU fouls, etc, that’s your ball game.
It was a great game, one of the best games in the Big East this season. Someone wins a game, someone loses a game. In this case, Marquette had to be the one that lost, and the reasons why are plentiful.
David Joplin had a game high 23 points in this one, going 7-for-13 from the field and 3-for-6 from long range and he was perfect on all six attempts from the charity stripe, too. Kam Jones had 21, but he needed 20 shots to get there, although he did end up 9-for-15 on two point attempts. Jop’s five rebounds tied with Stevie Mitchell for the team high, while Chase Ross led MU in assists with three.
How about some highlights, such as they are, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and Fox Sports?
Up Next: If Marquette wants to be ranked for a 50th consecutive week, there’s only one way to do it. That’s beat #6 St. John’s at home in the regular season finale. Tipoff is set for 11am Central time on Saturday, and Fox will have the broadcast. The Red Storm have already secured the Big East regular season title and the #1 seed in the Big East tournament, and they’ve been off since a home win over Seton Hall last Saturday.
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