One of the core tenets of what head coach Shaka Smart is doing with his Marquette men’s basketball teams is getting 32 deflections in a game. Another core tenet is getting eight kills — coming up with a defensive
stop three times in a row on eight different occasions — in a game.
Marquette finished their 89-82 loss to Maryland on Saturday with 24 deflections. That’s less than 32, maybe not by much, maybe a number you could live with if other things were working out for you. But it’s still missing the goal set by Smart and his staff and agreed to by the players on the team.
Marquette didn’t get back-to-back — not three in a row, just two in a row — stops on Maryland until there was 14:15 left in the first half. By that point, the visiting Terrapins were up 16-9, and that’s only because Royce Parham had just scored for MU on the other end to get the Golden Eagles to nine. At that that point of the game, Marquette only had five stops at all.
The Golden Eagles finished the first half with zero — nada, zip, zilch, goose egg — kills. Because they limited Maryland to just one field goal in the final eight minutes of the first half, that helped jumpstart Marquette’s offense. That’s how they flipped a 32-19 deficit to 42-42 at halftime. Marquette quite honestly had no business being tied at that point of the game, because they were just absolutely not getting stops at a clip that they needed to get them for the first 12 minutes of the contest, but somehow, they figured it all out.
Marquette opened the second half on a skunk. Six straight stops, including two turnovers. That’s two of the eight kills that Smart wants to see from his team, an indicator that the squad is accomplishing what they need to get done on the regular in order to win, a guidepost that says “hey, if you do this, we are going to win 99.9% of the time.” In the meantime, the Golden Eagles got transition buckets from Chase Ross and Nigel James, and then two free throws from Ben Gold that qualify as fast break points because of how he drew the foul. Marquette by six.
Back to back turnovers from Maryland, with a Zaide Lowery dunk in the middle. Two freebies from Ross, Marquette by eight.
Another turnover by the Terrapins, and a three from Ross — who had a career high 31 points — made it a nine point game, 55-46, with 15:02 to play in the game. Going alllllll the way back to that 13 point Maryland lead: 36-14 Marquette in 13 minutes of game time. You can win a lot of basketball games holding your opponent to about a point per minute. You can win a lot of basketball games scoring three points a minute, maybe even more than you can with that defensive point per minute.
Ross got the lead back to nine with 13:26 to go, and it came in the middle of back-to-back stops by the Golden Eagles on the defensive end.
Marquette would not get back-to-back stops again until there were less than five minutes left in the game. Maryland was up six at that point, and that was an improvement because they had gotten the lead up to eight. It had been 72-64 because of a 12-0 Maryland run that took just a little over two minutes off the clock. Zoooooooop, Terps lead and they would not relinquish that advantage again.
Those back to back stops with less than five to play? The first two of five straight stops for Marquette, falling one short of a kill. Five straight stops is a lot. Five straight stops should be enough to give you the edge to wipe out a six point deficit.
Marquette missed six field goals. Five layups.
Four straight scores by Maryland, three from Isaiah Watts, Terrapins by 12, that’s your ball game.
Marquette finished the game with three kills. The skunk to start the second half and the five straight that they wasted with six misses on the other end. Three. Not even half of the eight they want.
Marquette gave up 52.7% shooting from the field. Marquette gave up 36% three-point shooting, which is slightly better than it sounds because Maryland started the game with four straight makes and five in their first six attempts. That leaves them at 3-for-16 the rest of the way, which is much more in line with the kind of team that they had shown themselves to be in the first three games of their season.
The most shocking thing about what happened in this game? Marquette allowed just four offensive rebounds to the Terrapins. Four. Four out of 28, 14%, when Buzz Williams’ Texas A&M teams were living and dying on second chances. Obviously, when you shoot nearly 53%, you don’t need to worry about grabbing misses all that much, especially not early on this game when the threes were falling like raindrops. That’s part of the story as to how the Terps got to intermission without a single second chance attempt. Not second chance point, they had zero offensive rebounds at halftime, and it’s important to note that their first offensive rebound was in fact a shot that went out of bounds off the Golden Eagles. Still counts, but you see my point here.
A lot of nice stat lines went to waste because Marquette couldn’t get stops in this game. I mentioned Chase Ross and his career best 31 points, but he also had three rebounds, four assists, and two steals. Zaide Lowery had 13 points, eight rebounds, four assists, a block, and two steals. Do not ask follow up questions about his shooting, just work with me here. Ben Gold had 18 points — again, do not ask about the shooting — to go with eight rebounds. I’ll even praise Nigel James here, because I’m not asking a guy of his stature — I swear Mike J introduced him as “a 72 inch guard” — to grab rebounds, so getting eight points and four assists plus one rebound? Nice work.
But all for naught.
Highlights, such as they are, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and Peacock:
Oh, and Jerel McNeal’s banner raising ceremony, in case you were not in attendance:
Guys. They were bad on defense on Jerel McNeal Day. Cripes.
Up Next: In four days time, the Golden Eagles will get themselves back out on the court at Fiserv Forum. Dayton will be the guest, and tipoff on truTV is scheduled for 6:30pm Central time. The Flyers are 2-1 on the year pending the result of their Saturday night contest against Bethune Cookman.
I presume there are going to be some very tough conversations and questions going around 770 N. 12th Street between now and Wednesday night.
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