The Golden Eagles welcome the Huskies to a sold out McGuire Center to celebrate the new year.
This is not one of those years and times where if you really stare at the data for long enough, you can talk yourself into a “well, if these three things all shake out in Marquette’s favor……” approach to a game against Connecticut. It’s just not. God bless Cara Consuegra as she’s built this 9-3 record through her first 12 games as Marquette Golden Eagles women’s basketball head coach, God bless all of the players for all of the work that they have put in to getting the team to come together to look like they will clearly out-perform that 10th place projection from the preseason Big East coaches poll, etc., etc. whatever else you want to say.
But this is a year and a game where you look at Marquette and you look at UConn and you have to say “Marquette has to play 40 perfect minutes of basketball to beat UConn.” There are too many flaws on MU’s side of the court, particularly on the still improving offensive end of things, and not anywhere near enough exposed exhaust ports on UConn’s side of the court. It is going to take Marquette’s best effort of the season so far to merely make UConn uncomfortable inside a sold out McGuire Center, and then they’re going to need more than that if they want to win.
But that’s fine! I’m not being a Gloomy Gus about this game. I’m looking at it honestly, and realizing that the long arc of the season — there’s 16 more regular season games after this one, 15 more against Not UConn, after all — is about Marquette being better at the end of the year than they were at the beginning of the year. If all we can say about Marquette at 3pm on New Year’s Day is, “well, they gave them a hell of a fight and made them put MU’s face in the dirt in order to win that one,” then that’s not the worst way to spend the day for the Golden Eagles. That’s probably a huge growth moment, or at the very least, a sign of a huge amount of growth from that 57-50 loss to UCF to start the season.
In other words, this game is not really about this game, it’s about seeing where Marquette is going over the next two months.
But if they want to shoot 15-for-26 from long range, force a turnover on 30% of possessions, and shock the world, I’m not going to complain about it, either.
Big East Game #2: vs #7 UConn Huskies (11-2, 2-0 Big East)
Date: Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Time: 1pm Central
Location: A sold out Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Television: SNY if you’re in the northeast where you get SNY
Streaming: FoxSports.com/live or the Fox Sports app if you have a cable login and live outside the northeast.
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWBB
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 1-20 all time against Connecticut. The Golden Eagles picked up their only win in the series during the 2023 regular season, downing #4 UConn at the McGuire Center. The Huskies have won all four meetings since then, including putting Megan Duffy at the helm of the single worst offensive performance in the history of MU women’s hoops in last year’s Big East tournament semifinals. That happened. Never forget.
This just in: UConn’s great.
#2 at BartTorvik.com, #3 at HerHoopStats.com, #4 in the NET. They have wins over AP ranked teams in the form of #17 North Carolina and #25 Ole Miss, and they are 5-2 in the top three quadrants of the NET. Their losses are by 11 points at AP #3 Notre Dame and by two points at home against #4 USC.
The Huskies have a pair of big time scorers in National Player of the Year candidate Paige Bueckers (20.9 ppg) and National Freshman of the Year candidate Sarah Strong (17.4 ppg). If you squint a little bit, you could consider Strong to be a double-double threat since she leads UConn at 8.2 rebounds per game. They have a series of long range threats with Bueckers, Ashlynn Shade, and Morgan Cheli knocking down at least 40% of their three-point attempts this season.
Oh, and this isn’t full powered UConn. Azzi Fudd has played in just seven games this season, missing the first three of the year and another three in mid-December. She’s played in UConn’s last two, including their blowout win over Providence on Sunday, so expect to see her in action in Milwaukee. The Huskies have also gotten nothing at all this season from Caroline Ducharme, Aubrey Griffin, or Ayanna Patterson for a variety of injury related reasons.
If there is a flaw in this roving death sphere of a team, it’s that they don’t get to the free throw line all that much. In fact, they’re kind of openly bad at it, coming in at fourth worst in the country in free throw rate according to BartTorvik.com. That’s not really a thing you can exploit as an opponent, but it does mean that if the Huskies are getting to 10, 12, 15 free throw attempts in a game, you’re in a lot of trouble for a multitude of reasons.