DOESN’T MATTER, STILL COUNTS: Marquette 66, Xavier 65

For about 28 minutes on Wednesday night at Fiserv Forum, I was thinking, “Man, I don’t know what the final score of this game is going to be, but I sure do like the attitude and fiery approach and overall sense of gritty toughness that Marquette men’s basketball is showing here tonight.” Over the span of 28 minutes, Marquette had built a six point lead early on against Xavier, saw it dwindle to just two points, dragged it back up to eight, watched Filip Borovicanin slash it back down to just two with 3:10 left in the first half, went on an 8-0 run to end the half and lead by 10 at intermission, and if physics was nicer to Chase Ross’ prayer at the horn, it would have been 13.

Then, continuing on that first 28 minutes, MU gave up some buckets to Xavier and answered them right back. They got the lead to 12 on a fast break dunk by Nigel James, then traded buckets with the Musketeers for a minute, then with 11:50 to play, a three-pointer from Adrien Stevens out of a timeout, one of three on the night for him, made it a 13 point game, that margin that eluded the Golden Eagles at the half. Yes, the margin was great, but the effort that they were putting into getting there while on the business end of a six game losing streak, that’s what was impressing me about Shaka Smart’s team on this night.

And then I was not able to say that for a good long while. A bad inbounds pass under the bucket led to the ball bouncing past halfcourt, and Michael Phillips did the one thing you can not do: Bat at the ball to just stop its motion. If it was tipped by Xavier, you have possession of the ball if you pick it up. If it wasn’t, then it’s an over and back, and Xavier has to inbound the ball. Instead, the Musketeers picked it up, Shaka Smart was livid at his freshman wing, and Roddie Anderson hit a three for the second bucket in an 11-0 run by the visiting Musketeers.

But the margin had been 13, so it was still Marquette by two, they hadn’t lost the lead, merely squandered most of it. Layup from James, free throws from Royce Parham, staying even with X. Two free throws from Chase Ross, one from Tre Norman, and a Ross jumper, and it was MU by seven, 4:28 to go. Okay. Disaster averted, right?

Oh no.

6-0 Xavier, lead’s just one.

A stickback from Parham, who finished with a team high 14 points, stemmed the tide, but Tre Carroll got loose on the other end, and a very awful turnover by Ross, one of eight in the game, led to Malik Messina Moore getting out in transition, 65-64, Xavier by 1, 13 point lead dissipated like so much dry ice bubbling in a glass of water and vaporizing into the air.

Okay, fine. 2:07 left. Time to do stuffffffff and Ross turned it over again. SOMEHOW, Marquette made the stop on Messina-Moore in transition, James came up with it, and MU had 1:15 to work with down 1. James drove, threw some nonsense at the rim, but MU ended up with the ball again, and…. James got caught in the lane without a solid plan, and managed to pivot himself into a shot that the referees had to treat as a shot and not a pass to himself, because he came up with the offensive rebound IN DEFIANCE OF GOD’S WILL. Quick dish to Ben Gold, DUNK, Marquette by one.

The timing here was exquisite, because there was 48 seconds left. This was, somehow, a 2-for-1 chance for Marquette. They would get the ball back no matter what Xavier did, and what they did was Jovan Milicevic, their starting center who is also a 40% three-point shooter, letting loose from long distance.

He missed.

Chase Ross came up with it, and with 36 seconds left, Xavier elected to play this out. I was waiting and waiting and waiting for Richard Pitino to make the call for a foul, but they never fouled, not until Ross missed a layup and Ben Gold got fouled in the aftermath.

HE MISSED.

But Ben Gold would not be the goat on this night, as he got back on defense, got in front of Messina-Moore, and vertically contested a desperation heave right at the three-point line with the horn sounding while the ball was in the air. He hit backboard, that was MU’s third straight stop which means they ended the game on a kill, Marquette wins, Marquette wins, holy cow, Marquette snaps their six game losing streak and now has a Big East win, their first in five attempts this season.

Guys, I don’t know how to tell you, but Chase Ross was bad in this game. 12 points on 5-for-14 shooting? Bad. Eight turnovers? Bad. Nine rebounds, three assists, a block, and five steals? Okay, those things are good, but they really don’t balance out the bad. KenPom.com agrees with me on that, assigning Ross an offensive rating of just 63 in this game.

To say it another way: He was two turnovers and a rebound away from a triple double.

To say it a third way: He was two assists away from a five-by-five, except with turnovers instead of blocks.

But Marquette won, so we’ll let Shaka Smart focus on the problems there, just like we’ll let him focus on his decision to put Caedin Hamilton on the bench for this game and then play him for just seven minutes total and not at all in the final 7:34.

The really good news? The new Players Edition uniforms are now lucky and not cursed forever.

Highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and Fox Sports:

Up Next: Marquette gets another home game before a pair of road games, and if we were writing this section about six hours ago, we would say some very worrying things about the next opponent. Villanova comes to Fiserv Forum on Saturday afternoon for a 1:30pm tipoff on TNT. Six hours ago, Villanova was 12-2 on the year and 3-0 in the Big East, with their only losses coming in the opener to a BYU team that is currently #9 in the country and on the road against a Michigan team that is currently ripping all of their opponents limb from limb. But that was six hours ago, back before Villanova lost 76-72 at home to Creighton in the Wildcats’ worst defensive performance of the season.

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