Central Michigan was leading YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles men’s basketball team, 18-17, with 13:16 left in the first half. They only led for 90 seconds in the entire game, and that would be the last time
that the visiting Chippewas could look up at the Fiserv Forum scoreboard and see themselves out in front of the Golden Eagles on Saturday afternoon.
“Hey, look, sometimes that’s how games go, it’s back and forth for a little bit because both teams start at zero, and sometimes a team that’s clearly disadvantaged on paper has a lead for a bit.”
Sure. Not gonna disagree with a scratch of that.
That’s not my problem with Marquette trailing Central Michigan with a little less than seven minutes gone in the game.
My problem with it is that Marquette had a grand total of four stops at that point. Eight successful Central Michigan possessions to get their 18 points, all just three days after giving up a 60% effective field goal shooting percentage in an overtime loss to Dayton. It felt like this particular iteration of the Golden Eagles was insistent on just refusing to defend at all, much less in a way that head coach Shaka Smart continues to insist is the core identity of his program.
Central Michigan got the game back to tied at 21 on a three-pointer from Jaxson Whitaker at the 10:53 mark, and slowly, Marquette pushed away. A dunk from Josh Clark capped a 6-0 burst and put the Golden Eagles up seven for their largest lead of the first half. They brushed that margin twice more before intermission, and went into the break up five, 41-36, after the Chippewas got the last bucket of the frame. At halftime, Central Michigan had an effective field goal percentage of 50% and had only turned the ball over on 14.7% of their possessions. That’s with Marquette getting 16 deflections, half of their stated goal of 32, and three kills, all of which obviously came in the final 13 minutes of the half.
Okay, so, halftime, a chance to reset, talk about what is and is not working, go from there, right? Marquette scored the first two buckets out of halftime to go up nine…. and Central Michigan cut it to three. Another three-pointer from Whitaker — his only other make of the game on seven attempts, thankfully — with 13:44 to play slashed the margin down to just two, 51-49.
Did it feel like Marquette was truly, legitimately in trouble?
No, but it felt like that bit in a TV show or a movie where the car comes to a stop just a teeeeensy bit over the edge of a cliff and everyone has to work together to shift the weight backwards to escape falling over.
Two free throws from Chase Ross got a 10-2 burst from Marquette underway, and the margin finally hit double digits for the first time all afternoon, 63-52.
Then down to seven, 7:57 left.
Then down to five, 6:36 left.
Five again, 5:32 to go. Five again, 4:41 remaining. Whatever else you want to say about Central Michigan, even if the computers said that this is the worst team that Marquette is going to play all season, no one told the Chippewas that at any point. They just kept coming and coming and coming, and even with Marquette holding them to just 0.92 points per possession in the second half, it felt like MU just wasn’t ever going to get enough stops to end the game.
A bucket from Adrian Stevens with 4:18 to play triggered a 12-3 run to end the game for Marquette. The Golden Eagles never had a run longer than eight straight points in this game, and their largest lead of the game came with just 10 seconds when Stevens splashed a corner three to get us to the final 85-71 margin.
This was… not good. A win, sure. But judging it on the curve of “hey, y’all just flubbed a lead against Maryland then forgot to shoot it to end the Dayton game, can I see something that shows you’re annoyed about that here,” this is was not that. This was a team sleepwalking through a game at best….. and getting pushed by a not good CMU team — they lost at home by 24 to Northern Kentucky on Thursday! — at worst.
Chase Ross is your leading scorer here, getting 27 points on — I swear to you this is true — just eight field goal attempts because he also went 12-for-14 from the free throw line. He also added five rebounds and a team high seven assists and a team best three steals. If you get that from Chase Ross in a blowout win over Central Michigan, hey, neat. If you need that from Chase Ross in a tightly contested win that was maaaaaaybe still a little up in the air with 2:30 to play? Seems like a warning sign.
CAEDIN HAMILTON WATCH: 3-for-3 from the field for eight points, four rebounds, two blocks, a steal, one turnover, a +13 according to Stat Broadcast and a 121 offensive rating per KenPom.com. Not too shabby, but this was #308 Central Michigan, not, say, #63 Oklahoma.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and truTV?
Up Next: Hey, lookit that, coincidentally, Marquette is taking on that Oklahoma team I just mentioned a second ago. What are the odds? MU will head down to Chicago for that one, and tipoff at Credit Union 1 Arena on Illinois-Chicago’s campus is set for 1pm Central time on Friday, November 28th. NBC will have the broadcast on Black Friday, which is kind of neat. Oklahoma moved to 3-2 with a 95-71 home win over Oral Roberts on Thursday, and they’ll host Alcorn State on Sunday before coming up to the Windy City in search of their first KenPom.com top 300 win of the season.
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