The Golden Eagles welcome the Sycamores to the McGuire Center with an eye on extending their winning streak.
This season has been a series of “hey, alright, here we go!” moments for Marquette women’s basketball.
It started with their furious rally late in the season opener that ultimately fell short against UCF. Next was frustrating a pretty good Illinois team for most of 40 minutes before the Illini pulled away late for a double digit win. Then it was showing that the offense does work on a concept level in the home opener against a non-Division 1 team, then it was clonking IU Indy in the next one. As far as game results go, the good news kept on coming this weekend as Marquette successfully rallied on the road to beat Rutgers and then turned around a bit over 24 hours later and crushed Maryland Eastern Shore with big first and third quarters.
But that’s not all the good news! How about the fact that Marquette’s Her Hoop Stats Rating has drifted up, going from a ranking of #113 when it debuted after the first week of the season, peaking at #48 before settling in at its current home of #57? On Monday, the NET debuted, and Marquette came in at #65! Is that the best thing ever or does it tell us that the Golden Eagles are ticketed for an NCAA tournament bid? No, but remember: This was a season that was a bit of a mystery box when it started. Six returning players, most of whom effectively had zero experience playing with each other in a real game, plus six newcomers mixed in meant that new head coach Cara Consuegra was going to have to build the train engine and put it on the tracks this season.
So far, so good. Marquette has certainly looked like they’re figuring things out bit by bit by bit and getting ever so slightly more coherent from a team perspective every time they take the court.
Now, here’s the good news: BartTorvik.com — which currently ranks Marquette at #95, so think about that for a second — favors the Golden Eagles in each of their next five games. That’s the entire rest of the non-conference schedule, and the Big East opener on the road against DePaul is a coin toss game right now. If Marquette continues to develop and improve and just get a little bit better every time they lace up their shoes, we should be looking at a ten game winning streak in total, a 10-2 record, and a 1-0 Big East record heading into the New Year’s Day clash at the Al against Connecticut.
But that’s down the road. One step at a time. Marquette’s most important goal is to take care of the task at hand and use Tuesday night’s 40 minutes of action to get better and get a win. One game at a time now…..
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Game #7: vs Indiana State Sycamores (2-4)
Date: Tuesday, December 3, 2024
Time: 6:30pm Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWBB
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 3-1 all time against Indiana State. The first ever meeting went to the Sycamores in Terra Haute back in 1981. The two sides had a home-and-home series in 2007 and 2008, and then Marquette extended their streak to three straight wins with a victory in the 2014 WNIT.
Tuesday night will provide an interesting measuring stick for Marquette. Yes, I know, Indiana State is 2-4 on the year after beating Southeast Missouri State. Yes, that’s not great. Yes, they were picked to finish ninth in the Missouri Valley Conference this year, and that’s ninth out of 12 teams. It’s not what you want if you’re a Sycamores believer. But! For Marquette’s purposes, we’re going to focus on their 80-55 road loss to Butler on November 20th. That’s the measuring stick. Do I necessarily think that Marquette is capable of beating a second straight team by 20 or more points? Maybe not, but that’s what Butler did to ISU, and I think Marquette would like to find a way to prove that they are better than Butler once we get to Big East play.
Indiana State has a pair of double digit scorers in Keslyn Secrist and Chloe Williams. Secrist tops the chart at 14.5 points per game, while Williams isn’t that far behind at 12.2/game. Secrist is the more likely to get shots up from the outside, as she’s shooting 40% on 25 three-point attempts so far this season. That’s best on the team in both shooting percentage and attempts, so all the more reason to try to limit her. Williams is a 6’3” forward who has still gone 3-for-8 from long range this year, but given her 6.3 rebounds per game, it’s clear that she’s going to try to get work done in the paint.
MU will also have to find a way to deal with Saige Stahl, a 6’1” forward from Seymour, Indiana. She’s leading the team with 9.8 rebounds per game and getting it done on both ends of the floor. Her Hoop Stats has Stahl at #123 in offensive rebounding rate and #40 on the defensive glass. That’s an impressive situation there, but ISU isn’t an impressive rebounding team overall. If MU can get a body on Stahl, they can limit the Sycamores in a lot of ways.
This appears to be a game where if Marquette can kind of function on offense, their defense will be able to carry the day easily. BartTorvik.com has ISU at #310 in the country in effective field goal percentage and #318 in turnover rate. The Sycamores struggle to shoot the ball from anywhere on the floor and they’re turning it over on nearly 29% of their possessions. MU isn’t a crafty defensive team with the steals to an elite extent, but they’re still top 100 per Torvik, and they’ve yet to let a team score more than 92 points per 100 possessions this season as well. The Usual Cara Consuegra Defense should be enough to cut down the Sycamores (tree pun) and if Indiana State is throwing the ball around, that should give MU just enough easy buckets to carry the day.