The good news about what happened on Saturday is that the game never completely got away from Marquette, and that left the door open for the Golden Eagles — and in particular Skylar Forbes — to blast through
said open door and grab an overtime win over Wisconsin.
The bad news about what happened is that Marquette’s injured list got a little bit longer. The game started with the appearance of Abbey Cracknell in a walking boot and moving with the assistance of crutches after getting spun to the floor in an awkward fashion in the opening game of the season. The game ended with Kennedi Perkins not even in the arena after getting a neck brace and backboard for her stretcher ride to an ambulance after falling and striking the back of her head against a Wisconsin player’s knee. (By the way: Head coach Cara Consuegra said everything was essentially precautionary after the game, and the team Instagram Story’d an update on Sunday: “Thank you to everyone who has reached out about Kennedi Perkins. Kennedi is doing well and we appreciate everyone’s thoughts & prayers.”)
Those two injuries are on top of the already known done-for-the-season injuries for Aryelle Stevens (Achilles) and JJ Barnes (knee). What passes for good news here is that Marquette has 15 women on the roster this season, so at least Consuegra wasn’t coming at this from a shorthanded perspective anyway. But there’s a difference between losing a deep bench forward from last year and a freshman who was going to have to earn minutes and losing two rotation players, including Perkins, who was a supersub in the backcourt a season ago. In the best case scenario, I doubt Perkins will even travel to Minnesota for this game so we’ll see how that leaves the Golden Eagles.
Ignoring the MASH unit developing at the far end of the bench for a moment, we have to address the issue of Marquette looking lost in the high grass for 30 minutes on Saturday afternoon. All due respect to everyone involved, but Wisconsin should not have been that successful at disrupting MU’s offense merely by figuring out a way to eliminate Skylar Forbes from the equation. The big Canadian was a non-factor in the first three-quarters of the game because Wisconsin took her off the board completely with their defensive plan. Okay, that’s fine, but Marquette has to have a second pitch. “Well, we can’t get the ball to Skylar” shouldn’t zero out the rest of the offense, and that very much felt like what was happening as MU looked a little lost from time to time. With the shooting of Lee Volker and Jordan Meulemans and the playmaking of Jaidynn Mason and Olivia Porter, MU should have been able to cook something else up…. and that just didn’t happen.
Marquette got out of it because Skylar Forbes cooked Wisconsin over an open fire for 15 minutes to end the game. That’s great news…. but what if the Badgers had been able to lock her out for the full 40 of regulation? What happens when MU goes up against a team that’s projected to be better than Wisconsin…. say, a team projected to be 12-6 in UW’s conference instead of the 5-13 that the Badgers project to finish in the Big Ten?
Game #3: at RV Minnesota Golden Gophers (2-0)
Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2025
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Williams Arena, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Video Streaming: B1G+, which will set you back $13 for a month’s worth of access
Audio Streaming: GopherSports.com for the Minnesota broadcast, which might be free?
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWBB
Marquette is 4-4 all time against Minnesota. All eight contests happened in the 1990s, stretching from an 80-65 Minnesota win in Minneapolis on November 26, 1990, to a 67-57 Marquette victory on December 2, 1997. The two teams have traded off winning two at a time, and unfortunately, Marquette went last, winning in both 1996 and 1997.
Minnesota has started off the season with two straight home wins. They turned both North Dakota (91-47) and Manhattan (99-36) into mulch, so we’re not drawing any big conclusions from those W’s other than the Gophers appear to deserve the 15 points that they picked up in the preseason AP poll. They didn’t earn any attention from the league’s preseason honors, but that’s partially short circuited because the Big Ten only goes out to a top five from both a coaches poll and a media poll. Hey: If you don’t want to pick someone to finish in 18th place, don’t have 18 teams in your conference, ding dongs.
The Golden Gophers won the WBIT last season, prevailing over Belmont in the title game after winning two road games against Toledo and Missouri State to get their postseason run started. Minnesota returns the top four scorers from that team, with three of them averaging between 10 and 13.1 points per game, led by Grace Grocholski. The Gophers are also getting 17 points and three rebounds a game this year from Makena Christian, a six foot freshman from Lomira, Wisconsin. She’s a threat to shoot it, going 7-for-17 (41%) on threes through ttwo games.
Minnesota also returns Mara Braun, who averaged a team high 13.6 points to go with 1.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists before she broke her foot after five games. It was the same bone that broke during the 2023-24 season, but Braun has been in the starting lineup both times this year for the Gophers. She’s putting up 11.0 points and 4.5 rebounds while playing 21 and 26 minutes in the two blowouts. That seems like they’re not 100% taking it easy and careful with her, but we’ll have to see what happens when Tuesday’s game is more competitive.
This is Dawn Plitzuweit’s third year in charge of Minnesota and her 14th season as a Division 1 head coach, which includes stretches at Northern Kentucky, South Dakota, and West Virginia. BartTorvik.com’s statistical view of things only goes back to the 2020-21 season for Plitzuweit’s career, but it looks like this game could easily turn into a defensive battle. Her first year with the Gophers was the only time in those five finished seasons where Plitzuweit’s teams didn’t end up top 60 or better on the defensive end of the court. Minnesota finished the year at #42 last season, and her last year at South Dakota ranked #19 and her only year at West Virginia landed at #17. Both of those two teams were NCAA tournament squads, and the 2022 Coyotes went to the Sweet 16.
The other notable trend here is that Plitzuweit’s teams take care of the basketball. Her worst offensive turnover rate ranking is #39 in her first year in Minnesota, and the rate itself has landed somewhere between 16.4% and 19.1%. The Gophers are only at #52 in the country so far this season, but there’s way too much variability in the schedule right now….. because they’ve turned it over less than 11% of the time through their first 80 minutes of action.
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