Marquette Golden Eagles had won three straight games before heading into their battle with eleven-ranked Creighton at home on Wednesday night. If Golden Eagles won the game, bubble discussion could at least start happening even if they were a couple games away from that being legitimate, but instead, Marquette fell to Creighton, 85-70 due to a hot shooting night from the Bluejays, not capitalizing from the free throw line, Jays making Davante Gardner disappear and a ref show of epic proportions.Creighton is one of the best offenses in the country. They make their living on playing an up-tempo offense and not playing much defense in the process. The latter part did not come to bite them on Wednesday as Creighton used a one-two punch like a great WWE tag-team. In the first half, Ethan Wragge came up big with four three-pointers and in the second half, Doug McDermott, the National Player of the Year, heated up to finish with 25 points including a complete dagger three from the artist known as Dougie McBuckets to put the Jays up eight after Marquette pulled within five.
Marquette could not keep up with Creighton's offense for the entire game. Check out Cracked Sidewalks Twitter feed for more information from an advanced angle. This was Marquette's worst defensive performance of the season. Even though Marquette has been a decent defensive team, they were fully exposed on Wednesday when it came to not closing out on three-point shooters. This plagued Marquette all season and it continued Wednesday night. Wragge was a horrendous matchup for the Golden Eagles as Gardner's defense is about as useful as a canoe with wheels and Chris Otule cannot get out on shooters nor should be expect him to truthfully.
It is hard to say Buzz Williams should have done something differently on Wednesday with the defense. He tried a press for awhile. He tried a zone. I mean Williams seemed to do everything besides emptying the kitchen sink. Just like Villanova struggled twice with Creighton, Marquette does not match up well at all with this squad. The only defense I can think of that would give the Jays some trouble would be a 1-3-1 zone, but Marquette does not have enough athletes to play that defense. While this is the very last thing to complain about, the officials created atmosphere where physical play could not happen making things 10 times more difficult. Additionally, it did not help Marquette let everyone else go off in the first half when McDermott scuffled to begin the game.
In the last two games where Marquette won, Golden Eagles were 54 of 61 from the free throw line that equates out to about 88 percent from the charity stripe. In a game that featured ridiculous officiating, Marquette had a chance to earn points from the line. They went a disgusting 20/36 making only 55 percent of their free throws. What the hell happened? Well for one, Otule and Derrick Wilson combined missed nine of the 16. Both of them are some of the worst free throw shooters on the team, but it did not help that Todd Mayo, one of their better free throw shooters, missed four as well. Marquette could have made this a much closer game than it ended up being by the sound of the final buzzer if they made free throws happen.
For as bad of a defensive team Creighton is, it surprises me how good of a book they have on Davante Gardner. Until yesterday, Gardner had scored at least 10 points since January 11th against Seton Hall. But in his two games against Creighton this season, Gardner has a total of 12 points on only five field goal attempts. I do not know if it is the rotating physical big men that give Gardner trouble or their defense does not allow for him to get the open looks. I will say some of the calls Davante usually gets inside were not in the first half, but still that's not excuse for him only getting three field goal attempts when he is averaging nine and a half. Once again, another bad matchup disabling Marquette on Wednesday night.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the putrid officiating that took place at the BMOHBC. It was horrible both ways. Officials, Mike Stuart, Mike Eades and Jeff Anderson did not know whether they wanted to call a tight game or a loose game in the first half. And then in the second half, officials whistled every little thing disrupting the flow of the game making it extremely hard to watch in person and I would willing to bet worse on television. Hopefully, this is not a trend for the coming month as officials might head back to the November way of calling everything. Let's pray this group was blind drunk with power and thought everyone in attendance was there to see them.
Marquette is basically in the same holding pattern they have been in all year. The inability to win when the spotlight shines the brightest has crippled this unit. They have to travel to the terrordome that is DePaul on Saturday before heading home for a big one with Georgetown next Thursday. Even if their tournament hopes are about as small as a pebble of sand, they need to keep winning basketball games and not quit on the season.
Charlie.
