92% of this was maybe the best performance of the year for the Golden Eagles. The last 8%? Not so much.
As I watched Seton Hall blast past Marquette in the final three minutes with a 13-0 run to flip a seven point MU advantage to a six point SHU victory, I thought to myself, “oh, right, this team hasn’t gotten a chance from their terrible non-conference performance to learn how to win games when it comes down to the highest leverage moments.”
I actually thought that.
And then I remembered: I’m really only thinking about the disasters against Indiana, Wisconsin, and Purdue where Marquette was never really in those games, and I’m thinking about Creighton blowing MU’s doors off in the first half 10 days ago in Omaha, and I’m thinking about Georgetown stepping on MU’s neck when already up five with just under seven minutes left to go. That’s what I was thinking of.
This Marquette team had plenty of chances to learn how to win games when it really mattered. They had the Maryland game, and the Dayton game, and the Oklahoma game, and the Valparaiso game which went to overtime and they actually gutted out the W. They should have had at least a rep or seven or 12 after those games.
And yet, here they were, putting up well more than a point per possession through 37 minutes against a top 20 defense. Here they were, turning the ball over just eight times in 40 minutes — admittedly all eight in the second half, but stick with me here — for a rate of just 11% against a Seton Hall defense that takes it from you 24% of the time coming in and better than 19% in their three Big East games now, including what happened tonight.
This may have been the best 37 consecutive minutes of Marquette’s entire season.
They got punched in the face in the first half, giving up a 13-2 run and letting a 16-8 lead turn into a 21-18 deficit. They ripped off a 16-0 run in the second half to go up by 10. They quite nearly gave all of those 10 points back, immediately giving up a 13-5 run that got Seton Hall within two, 60-58, with 8:14 to play.
And then they answered that. Two free throws from Ben Gold, who finished with a career high 19 points before fouling out, and a three from Royce Parham. Two more freebies from Gold. Two from Chase Ross. Two more from Gold. 11-6 Marquette to respond to Seton Hall chasing them down, and it was 73-66 with 3:25 to go.
Because of that run of free throws, Marquette was already on a run of nearly three minutes without a field goal at that point, but it was mostly fine, because they were expanding their lead back out. What happened after that was Marquette extending that no field goals run to the entirety of the final 6:14. They came up empty over and over again, including a Chase Ross missed layup that I think wasn’t him so much missing as not getting the lift he thought he would get for a dunk and not properly adjusting in the air. Ross fell awkwardly in the first half but seemed no worse for wear at the time… at least until he came out of the locker room with a sleeve on his leg. I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic when I point that out and note that Ross played 36 minutes in this game. Slightly dinged and a bit gassed, and didn’t lift off hard enough for a dunk? I’m not going to judge a guy for his body failing him…. but that was the beginning of the end for Marquette, too.
Meanwhile, MU couldn’t stop fouling Seton Hall. It was a 13-0 run, but the first six of it were all at the free throw line, including Sean Jones fouling Trey Parker in the corner, who came into this game 0-2 on threes in Big East play and 5-for-22 (23%) on the season. Just let him shoot, my guy.
The six free throws got it to a one point game with 1:30 to play, and after Nigel James threw the ball away because the Golden Eagles were just trying to do way too much way too frantically as the game slipped away, Tajuan Simpkins took off for the runout. One Marquette timeout later, Adrien Stevens got just far enough into his shooting motion before he said “ooh, wait, no, I don’t want to any more because of that defender,” and dribbled, and it was rightfully called a travel. Two missed threes by James and Ross, a SHU rebound, and a foul, and that’s Pirates by four with 20 seconds left.
They had it. For 37 minutes, they went to war with the Pirates, and they looked like they had what it takes to get it done….. and then for three minutes, they lost the ability to do anything right and they dropped to 0-3 in the Big East for the first time since Shaka Smart’s first season in Milwaukee and the second time in any conference at all since Mike Deane’s Golden Eagles started out 0-5 in Conference USA in 1998-99.
One final thing, and I’m just going to say the facts and let you ruminate on it yourself, either in the comments or otherwise:
Caedin Hamilton started and played four minutes. The four in question are the first three of the game and the last minute of the first half. He split a pair of free throws for the first point of the game, missed a three, had a hookshot blocked, committed a foul, and subbed out at 17:02. He came back at 1:26, committed two fouls, including the one that let Seton Hall flip the lead with one second left in the half, and never played again.
Damarius Owens played nine minutes, six in the first half, three in the second, and none after the 8:14 mark.
Tre Norman didn’t play at all.
Michael Phillips didn’t play at all, although he spent nearly the entirety of the game on the stationary bike behind the bench.
Highlights, such as they are, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and Fox Sports:
Up Next: You guys wanna see a dead body? On Sunday, Marquette ventures out east to Gampel Pavilion to take on UConn. That game is schedule to start at 3pm Central time on NBC, and given the Huskies’ AP ranking and computer rankings, that thing might technically end around 3:15. UConn is 12-1 on the year and 2-0 in the Big East, and their lone loss is at home to a very good Arizona team in a game that they lost by four points without big man Tarris Reed in the lineup. The Huskies have to visit Xavier on New Year’s Eve before hosting Marquette.
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Category: General Sports
