The Golden Eagles host a Division 2 team for the double whammy of the home opener as well as Milwaukee Public Schools Day.
Okay, look. I’m not going to convince anyone that things are going super great for Marquette women’s basketball after two games of the Cara Consuegra Era. The Golden Eagles are 0-2, and if not for a late push in both cases, they would probably be on the business end of two kind of ugly losses.
I do mean ugly on the scoreboard, because there’s no doubting that things got pretty ugly as far as game play style goes, too. Marquette has yet to crack 0.75 points per possession this season, and yep, that’s real bad. It’s going to be hard to win basketball games at that rate this year, no matter who the opponent is. That needs to be solved immediately, because there’s no reason why the Golden Eagles shouldn’t be able to score against an 0-3 Division 2 team. Sorry, Prairie Stars fans, that’s just how it goes.
It’s not all bad, though.
Marquette has also yet to allow 0.92 points per possession in a game. You can’t necessarily win a lot of basketball games doing that, as proven by that 0-2 record, but if you can get some reasonably competent offense, you can at least stay competitive by being a complete pain in the ass to your opponent on defense. In fact, BartTorvik.com says that Marquette has the #45 defense in the country right now when you filter out preseason expectations. What’s their offensive ranking? Mind your business.
A simple plan for Monday morning then: Get the offense going in a positive direction and keep up the stout defense. The offensive problem may just be a by-product of having almost no one on the roster that’s used to playing with each other before this season. Hopefully 40 minutes against what should be a wildly overmatched Division 2 team will help iron out a lot of hiccups on that end of the floor.
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Game #3: vs Illinois Springfield Prairie Stars (0-3)
Date: Monday, November 18, 2024
Time: 11am Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports, with Bob Brainerd and Chloe Marotta calling the action
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWBB
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
This will be the first ever meeting between Marquette and Illinois Springfield.
Okay, so here’s UIS’s deal:
- They’re a Division 2 team
- They went 15-14 last year with a 13-9 record in conference play, and that was a program record for conference wins.
- They’re picked to finish 10th in the GLVC this season out of 15 teams.
- They’re 0-3 so far this season, including a 70-56 home loss to Stephens College last Thursday. Stephens College is an NAIA program.
- Her Hoop Stats tracks Division 2 teams. Illinois Springfield is #234 out of 284 Division 2 teams. Yes, it’s early, but also that doesn’t count the loss to Stephens College.
- They have three double digit scorers, led by Diavian Mehundrew, who is averaging 14.7 points per game.
- Saharra Murphy leads the Prairie Stars in rebounding at 6.3 per game, narrowly beating out “the other team knocked it out of bounds” with 6.0.