How much grace do you want to extend to Marquette men’s basketball on a night when they had a chance to shoot for overtime on the road against a team that is the unofficial #30 team in the country in the AP poll? This has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad season for Marquette, and just the phrase “had the ball with a chance to force overtime against a team earning AP votes” for this team is something of an accomplishment.
If you’re willing to extend grace.
Maybe a lot of it.
To be honest,
I was pretty sure that Marquette was horribly screwed four minutes in and they had given up an 8-0 run to fall behind 11-4. If not then, you can look at the 7-0 run shortly thereafter that propelled the Wildcats to a 20-9 lead with 10:14 left in the first half. Just a whole bunch of red blinking lights, grinding noises, and smoke issuing from anything that has a seam in it.
But, somehow, slowly but surely, Marquette chipped away, and after holding Villanova without a point for the final 2:29 of the half, Marquette was only down four, 36-32, at halftime. Okay, sure. They’ve adjusted to what the Wildcats are doing and this has turned into a competitive game. Neat.
Royce Parham dunked for two of his 26 points — a new career high, he had never scored 20 before — and Marquette….was leading? 39-38?
Okay, 9-2 Villanova, Wildcats back up seven, nature is healing, so to…. speak…. Marquette has a 15-3 run? Royce Parham scored nine of it himself? TRE NORMAN HAD BACK TO BACK BUCKETS AND PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE HAD AN AND-1? What kind of devil magic is this?
Ben Gold burned some poor sap in a Villanova uni for a layup and then cashed a three for a nine point Marquette lead with six minutes left? What in tarnation?
Cue the 18-6 Villanova run that dragged all the way down to less than 30 seconds left. Wildcats by three. Nigel James’ layup with 14 seconds to go to get the game to just one point was Marquette’s first points in over three minutes. It wasn’t really an 18-6 run, it was two 9-0 runs smooshed up against threes from Gold and Chase Ross — that was Ross’ only make on two field goal attempts in the game and that was his first attempt since MU’s very first shot of the game — and along the way, Nigel James and Adrien Stevens combined to miss four shots, three from behind the arc, and James was officially charged with the last two of his six turnovers in this game.
And yet, after Devin Askew hit two free throws with 11 seconds left, Marquette had a chance to tie it. My red flashing warning lights popped on when James felt just a liiiiiiiitle too slow coming up the court with so little time left, and the screen exchange between James and Stevens just never got either one of them clear of a defender enough to shoot it, and in fact, officially, Tyler Perkins blocked Stevens’ shot as time expired.
Should they have been in that situation? No, and you can argue no in both directions. Marquette looked to be on the verge of getting blown out badly early on, and then with six minutes left, Marquette looked like they were about to crack this game wide open.
In a game where two freshmen and a sophomore were the leading components for the Golden Eagles, is it just enough to be in a game like this in a season that’s gone like this? Growing moment and all of that?
Or did Marquette choke their fifth Big East win away?
Highlights, such as they are, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and TNT Sports:
Up Next: Can I interest you in another game on the road? Marquette returns to action this Saturday when they head out to visit Xavier knowing that it is now impossible to finish with a winning record in Big East play. Tipoff on TNT is scheduled for 2pm Central. Xavier has lost five of their last six games after falling 87-82 in overtime on the road against St. John’s on Monday night, and their only win since mid-January is a 68-66 escape over DePaul at home.
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