The Golden Eagles make a late rally but it’s not enough on the road against the Knights in the season opener.
Cara Consuegra’s run as Marquette women’s basketball head coach has started with a loss. The Golden Eagles went down to Florida to start the 2024-25 season, and they’re coming back after a 57-50 defeat at the hands of the UCF Knights on Thursday night.
In brief: Things looked bad, then they looked fine, then they looked bad again, and then they got a little bit worse, and then Marquette did a whole bunch of scoring in a hurry and UCF kept leaving the door open for MU to take the victory.
The first bad part was UCF going on a 10-0 run in the first quarter to take a 12-5 lead. The Knights made it worse for Marquette — arguably, this is where the game was won — as they built the lead out to 27-14 midway through the second period. But the Golden Eagles scored the final eight points of the half, so it was a five point game, 27-22, at intermission. If UCF going up 13 wasn’t where the game was won, Marquette taking SIX ENTIRE MINUTES to score eight points in the wake of falling behind by 13 probably is.
UCF got the margin back to double digits midway through the third quarter, and MU tallied just one free throw in the final 3:48. 12 point game with 10 minutes to go, and then it was 16, 52-36, with six to play.
This felt very over.
Except UCF committed 27 turnovers in this game, and seven of them came after the six minute mark of the fourth quarter. In their best stretch of the night, Marquette went on a 12-1 run across more than five minutes, and holy crap, Skylar Forbes hit her third three-pointer of the night, and it is a five point game, 53-48, with 61 seconds left.
See, this is where falling behind by 13 and taking six minutes to cut it to five comes into play. It just makes everything else you do harder, especially when you let it balloon back up to 16 points, maybe kind of because you turned it over 19 times yourself in the game.
Things got a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs in the final minute. Marquette had to foul a few times to UCF to the free throw line, but Nevaeh Brown missed two freebies. MU ball, 25 seconds to go. Olivia Porter goes to the baseline to throw the pass to the corner, but she steps out. Timeout UCF….. and they can’t inbound the ball. Somehow, Marquette gets another chance down five with 23 seconds left.
Forbes misses a three, UCF splits a pair of freebies, MU throws the ball away, now there’s just no more time left…. well, okay, there was enough time for five more points to be scored, but not enough for Marquette to really make things dangerous for the Knights.
19 turnovers, effective field goal percentage of 35.5%, people not named Skylar Forbes shot 0-for-9 behind the three-point line, couldn’t take advantage of UCF’s miscues all game long…… there’s a laundry list of explanations as to how Marquette came up on the short end of the stick here, but good news: That was Game #1. Now Consuegra knows what her team looks like when they make contact with a real opponent. Next up: playing better.
How about some highlights, such as they are, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and ESPN+?
Up Next: Another road trip, this one in the Midwest as Marquette heads to Champaign to play Illinois. That game is set for 7pm Central time, and Big Ten Network will pick up the broadcast. The Illini are 1-0 on the year after beating #19 Florida State at the State Farm Center on Thursday evening.