That lesson? Don’t fall behind by 19 points in the second half.
We can spend a lot of time going over bits and pieces and sections and parcels of #7 Marquette’s 59-57 loss to Xavier on Saturday afternoon on Fiserv Forum if you want. We can talk about Marquette’s poor shooting performance, we can talk about Marquette’s turnover problem, we can talk about MU’s inability to find something that countered Xavier’s defense collapsing on any trip anywhere near the paint for almost all of the game. There’s probably more to talk about, but that’s the stuff that jumps off the court at me as the notable portions of what happened here.
But at the end of the day, up to and including Marquette forcing a tieup with eight seconds left and then not getting a single shot into the air after the possession arrow giving the Golden Eagles the ball, only one thing about this game truly matters to explain the outcome. It’s not those final eight seconds, not even how Stevie Mitchell had probably two chances to put something up and never quite made it happen.
Nope.
It’s this:
With 14:56 to go in the game, Dailyn Swain scored a layup to cap a 10-2 Musketeers run coming out of the locker room. That layup made the score 45-26. Marquette trailed by 19, and you just can not expect to win if you trail by 19 in a game.
Can you win? Sure, I bet there’s lots of 20+ point comebacks in NCAA history. But when you spend the entirety of the first half doing nothing that resembles staying in the ball game with Xavier and then you hand them eight more points onto their 11 point halftime margin, you can not expect to win that ball game.
Marquette tried their damnedest, that’s for sure. Somehow, they outscored Xavier 31-14 over the final 14 minutes and change. Quite possibly, a completely ridiculous stretch of basketball, given how the first 25 minutes had gone. At one point in there, it was a 23-8 run. Absurd. At some point late in the second half, Xavier stopped collapsing on the lane to stop drives and digging at the ball as Marquette collected it and SHOCKER, that allowed Marquette to get to the rim and score a whole bunch. I don’t know if it’s because the time was winding away and XU had seven personal fouls already in the half, but all of a sudden, pathways were just coming wide open for the Golden Eagles.
If you want to argue with me about whether or not falling behind by 19 is where the game was truly decided, I think you’re a bit odd, but I’ll entertain your point. The spot where MU’s rally foundered was just past the 10 minute mark. Chase Ross split a pair of freebies to make it a 10 point game. Not great news since it was an 11 point game at the half, but after the 19 point deficit, that was an accomplishment. MU needed to push it over the hump and get Xavier feeling the pressure. Instead, MU didn’t get another field goal until the 7:40 mark and Dayvion McKnight scored two layups on back-to-back possessions for the X-Men. That lead popped back to 14, and getting slowed down on the forward progress is probably the fatal flaw in the whole thing.
But again: Just don’t be down 19 in the first place.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and Fox Sports?
Up Next: Marquette looks to get back on the winning side of the ledger when they travel to Seton Hall on Tuesday. Tipoff on that one is set for 7pm Central, and it will be streamed exclusively on Peacock. The Pirates are 1-5 in Big East action and 6-11 overall this season, pending a Saturday night home game against St. John’s.
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook: AnonymousEagle
Instagram: AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky: AnonymousEagle