seemed like this was the case. They yet to have a marquee win on the year, and Golden Eagles could have achieved it on Thursday night by getting a road win against Xavier. This did not happen with Musketeers getting their eighth straight win beating Marquette, 86-79 in a game where Marquette once again struggled in late game situations, continued rebounding issues and Jamil Wilson disappeared again putting Golden Eagles' back entirely up against the wall.
This feels like a broken record at this point, but Marquette showed great fight in a losing effort. They were down double-digits at the early stages of the second half, and Golden Eagles found ways to battle back with hitting 3-pointers as well as playing tough defense in stages. The game was tied with a little under five minutes left to play yet from there but Xavier took any dreams of stealing a win by going on an 8-0 run with two big threes from Semaj Christon. The most frustrating part of this is Christon only shoots 1.5 threes per game and he nails two big balls threes in the biggest moment of the game. He took the top dog spot late when it was needed for Xavier, if only Marquette had that sort of thing. For the first time in awhile, a team annihilated Marquette on the glass. Xavier did a complete glass cleaning against Marquette by outrebounding them 39-20. The fact Marquette only grabbed 20 defensive rebounds is absolutely incredible in the sense they still had a chance in this basketball game. It comes from Davante Gardner's inability to rebound the basketball. Despite being the biggest guy on the court usually (Xavier's Matt Stainbrook was a behemoth inside and I would love to see Gardner-Stainbrook-Joshua Smith in a steel cage), Gardner does not really seem to care about rebounding the basketball. In the last five games, Gardner is averaging 3.8 rebounds a game as a power forward. That is entirely unacceptable. There is no reason why he cannot throw his ass into somebody and pull down at least five boards a game, do not let his average fooled you.
Another big problem in Marquette's defeat was Jamil Wilson struggling to be a true threat to score. He had his worst game of the year. Wilson only had five points only shot five times and fouled out with five minutes left in the game. Looking at Wilson's games this year, he is turning in a very inconsistent season without any defining moments. In some of the marquee games, Wilson seemed to shoot more even if he did not make many (Wisconsin game where he went 7/19) or he just did not become part of the game. He needs to go Keyshawn Johnson at some point and just demand the damn ball. There is nothing wrong with being selfish and taking control of the scoring. It will open up the middle for Gardner, and there is no reason to think Wilson cannot find seams in an opposing defense.
Marquette has seven losses. They are virtually nowhere near close to the NCAA Tournament therefore no real reason to talk about it. Golden Eagles probably need to win all of their games for the rest of the month winning at tough environments like Butler and Georgetown even if both teams are having rough years as well as beat the Big East leader Villanova at home. Additionally, a strong February with no bad losses is probably needed for Marquette to be in the conversation of the tournament come March. It is straight uphill from here and it does not seem like Marquette has enough to climb the mountain.
Charlie.
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