I would like it if Marquette would stop being interesting.
The 73-66 loss to St. John’s on December 29th was run-of-the-mill interesting as far as basketball goes, as Marquette missed 14 layups in the game. Four in were in the fourth quarter, all of which were when the Golden Eagles were within a possession. If half of those layups go the other way, it’s easy to see how Marquette swings a win.
New Year’s Day in Cincinnati was a different kind of interesting, as we found out three hours before the game
that Skylar Forbes was out against Xavier. According to the ESPN+ broadcast, the reason was illness, which is better than any other reason, and the fact that Forbes was on the bench for the game was also a positive sign for her health otherwise.
Still, that left Marquette shorthanded with Kennedi Perkins still out after a foot injury suffered in the opening moments against Truman State. Other than a 14-0 run in the second quarter, Marquette never really got their game into third gear against an otherwise on paper overmatched Xavier team. They actually ended up getting outscored in the third quarter by the Musketeers, which kind of takes the edge off of leading by as many as 18 in the period. They won, and they won handily, but the underlying stats from that game definitely did not make anyone paying attention feel 100% happy about what happened.
So that’s back-to-back “uh, this is kind of not great” performances from Marquette, which is really not the thing you want after you really don’t put together a non-conference resume that’s worth telling the NCAA selection committee about. It’s really not what you want when your next three games are against three of the other top half of the conference teams, one of whom — that’s Sunday’s opponent! — hasn’t lost since November 12th and has definitely already beaten teams better than you.
All of this can be solved with 40 quality minutes of basketball at the McGuire Center, even if it ends up as a loss to a very good Villanova team. A win would be great, but looking like a competent basketball team that can hit layups and not turn the ball over — 32% rate against Xavier, the worst of the year! — is almost more important for the Golden Eagles right now.
Big East Game #6: vs Villanova Wildcats (12-2, 5-0 Big East)
Date: Sunday, January 4, 2025
Time: 3pm Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: Peacock, with Kylen Mills and Chloe Marotta on the call
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWBB
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 19-17 all time against Villanova. The Wildcats’ 65-53 win at the Finn last season busted up a two game run of victories by the Golden Eagles, and now Nova has won seven of the last nine encounters.
It was a bit of a shaky start to the season for Villanova, but they’ve turned things around since scuffling through a 75-63 home loss to Fairfield and coming up short in a 73-68 home loss against Princeton. Neither of these are bad losses for the Wildcats relative to how good the opponents are, although I presume that head coach Denise Dillon will be happy to tell you that they might have beaten Fairfield if the Cats didn’t fall behind by 12 points in the first five minutes.
Since then, however, it’s been all upwards and onwards for Villanova. They have not lost at all since that 2-2 start to the season, with highlights of winning at James Madison and at West Virginia in there. As you can see, they’re 5-0 in the Big East already, although it’s fair to say that this road game is their toughest test so far after getting Seton Hall, St. John’s, and Creighton at home already. In fact, this game and the regular season finale at Seton Hall are the only times the rest of the year (other than UConn, lol) that Villanova is favored by less than 10 points according to BartTorvik.com’s projections. They’re favored by eight here and just one against the Pirates in late February.
Jasmine Bascoe is going to get the attention for Villanova, as she should as VU’s leading scorer at 17.3 points per game. She’s also tops in assists at 4.4 per game, and Bascoe is the only Wildcat attempting more than eight shots per game……. and she’s waaaaaaay up there at more than 17 attempts per night. However, you can make an argument that Brynn McCurry is more valuable to what Villanova is doing. The 6’1” forward leads the team in rebounding at 5.9 per night, and she’s not exactly slacking off with 12.1 points and 3.9 assists, either. The point is that she’s doing more with less, as Bascoe is heavily dominating the shot taking for the Wildcats, but McCurry is still doing damage.
Weirdly, even with Bascoe shooting an effective field goal percentage of just 45.2% while hitting just 46% of her twos and under 30% of her threes, Villanova is still a lethal shooting team. They’re #20 in the country per Torvik in effective field goal percentage as a team, and they knock down 38% of their threes and nearly 52% of their twos. If Marquette can induce Bascoe to try to take over the game and shoot all the shots, that’s potentially good news for how this could go, as Ryanne Allen is shooting 50% on threes, and both Brooke Bender and Kennedy Henry are at 40% or better. Kelsey Joens is shooting 37% from behind the arc, and all four of those women attempt at least 3.6 triples a night. I think we’ve figured out why the Wildcats get 8.3 assists per game from Bascoe and McCurry: Kick and shoot. That’s the catch: Can you make it hard for Bascoe to shoot going to the rim, but not hard enough where she’s looking to kick it to open shooters?
One final note on the Wildcats: Jasmine Bascoe was listed as questionable three hours before their New Year’s Day game against Creighton. However, she played 33 minutes and put up 15 points on 7-for-19 shooting, along with three rebounds and six assists. SEEMS PRETTY OKAY TO ME, but we’ll see where she’s at come Sunday.
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