The first year of Cara Consuegra’s time in charge of the Golden Eagles wraps up with an overtime loss in the 2nd round of the WBIT.
If you had told me before the WBIT second round game had started on Sunday that Marquette would take top seeded James Madison to overtime on their home floor, I think I would have said “well, y’know, I would have preferred winning in regulation, but overtime means they played a 29-5 team that ran the Sun Belt table at 20-0 pretty close the whole way, so that’s fine.”
If you had told me that, and then I watched Marquette give up an 11-0 run to the Dukes across the first four-plus minutes of the game, I probably would have tried to have you institutionalized for being an inveterate liar.
But that’s what happened, and MU’s first field goal of the game didn’t come until Lee Volker popped home a three-pointer with 3:35 left in the first quarter to make it a 14-5 ball game.
The omens were bad, y’all.
And yet, somehow, it was just 18-12 James Madison at the end of the first quarter, meaning MU outscored JMU 12-7 after that not-so-fun start. Then, with 6:23 left in the second quarter, Skylar Forbes rained in a three, and moments later off a Jaidynn Mason steal, Halle Vice got a layup, and it was 26-24 Marquette.
26-13 Golden Eagles to take the lead.
From there, a heck of a basketball game erupted.
Marquette led 32-30 at halftime, and then 52-51 after a transition bucket from Vice heading to the fourth quarter. In the middle of the frame, James Madison put together a five point margin, 61-56, out of a tie, and it started to look shaky for Marquette. A measly five point deficit wasn’t going to bother the Golden Eagles at this point though, nor the six point deficit with 2:31 to play. Buckets from Forbes and Olivia Porter plugged away at the margin, and then two free throws from Forbes tied it back up at 66 with under a minute left.
MU got a stop, Lee Volker missed a corner three, JMU’s Peyton McDaniel lost the ball out of bounds trying to split between two defenders, and lo and behold, the Golden Eagles used a timeout to advance the ball and had a chance to win it with any shot with 3.1 to play.
After everything that had happened, the failure here probably doomed Marquette. They got it in no problem, and upon receiving the inbounds on the wing, Skylar Forbes…… just…… stood…… there. I’m convinced that time stopped. It seemed to go on forever before Forbes made a move to drive, and time stopping allowed JMU to build a wall and never let Forbes get a shot off. I’m not blaming Forbes for the loss, I’m saying that the entire proceedings needed way more activity from Marquette all over the floor with 3.1 to go.
Anyway. Five extra minutes.
If Marquette had gotten one more stop than they got in the first four minutes of overtime, they probably win the game. They didn’t, as JMU was pretty adept at getting into the lane and either drawing a foul for free throws or just scoring. That ended up with Marquette playing off their back foot a little bit for the entirety of the five minutes. Still, they had the ball down three with 28 seconds left. Things could have worked out for them. They didn’t, as Volker missed an awkward leaner in the lane, JMU hit some free throws, Mason buried a three to make it a two-point game with eight seconds left, but as long as JMU hit their freebies, it was over.
They did, and it was over: The game, the WBIT run, and the 2024-25 season. Kind of a drag that they couldn’t pull this game off, but advancing to the second round of the WBIT to put a nice cap on a better than expected first season with Cara Consuegra running the show for Marquette? Not even close to a drag.
Skylar Forbes finished with a game high 25 points, while Halle Vice posted a double-double of the literal kind with 22 points and a game high 11 rebounds.
Up Next: The first full offseason in charge for Cara Consuegra. She heads into a Year Two with Lee Volker and Abbey Cracknell leaving after the end of their eligibility, and with two freshmen signed up for next fall, that still leaves three possible roster spots to fill. I’m curious to see if there’s going to be any portal recruiting going on here, because 12 women is enough to run a team for a year, but the fact remains that MU didn’t have any freshmen this year…. and they are projected to have six seniors. A little bit of roster balancing wouldn’t be ridiculous, y’know?
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