The Golden Eagles' successful brand of speed ball was no match for an undersized and similarly exhausted Panthers team, which was playing just its second game at home this season.,”
A jet-lagged Marquette team showed it was the more dominant school of the 414 area code by banking a 74-63 victory over Wisconsin-Milwaukee, its nearest geographical opponent.
The Golden Eagles' brand of speed ball was no match for an undersized and similarly exhausted Panthers team, which was playing just its second game at home this season.
With only 735 attendees at the Klotsche Center, the visiting faithful clad in blue and gold were left chanting, "This is our town," in the waning moments of Wednesday night's showdown.
Continuing to improve since losing on the road to Virginia, Marquette learned a lot about its character last weekend in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where it won three games in as many days, including the championship of the Paradise Jam.
"Right now, this team is all about the intangibles," Marquette coach Terri Mitchell said.
"We're coming off a week where we played four games in six days. That was an extremely intense game where we had to turn around and re-focus for 40 minutes. Although the Virgin Islands was an awesome trip, there's the price you pay on the way back. We were very fatigued this week."
The Golden Eagles (6-1) often fed the hot hand of Danielle Kamm.
Kamm, who entered the game averaging a team-high 7.0 rebounds per contest, showed another dimension of her game besides crashing the glass.
A match-up problem for most zone defenses, the 6-foot-2 senior forward was 4-of-7 from the three-point stripe, matching a career-high with 18 points in only 23 minutes.
Teammate Krystal Ellis shared a game-high 19 points along with Traci Edwards of the Panthers.
"Against any zone you're going to have more opportunities from the outside to find open looks," Kamm said. "Because they were in a zone, I just happened to have the open hand today."
Kamm scored eight of Marquette's initial 12 points in the second half.
"Her height gives her an advantage to rebound and defend," Mitchell said. "But at the same time, she has the guard skills on the perimeter."
UW-Milwaukee (3-5) wasn't exactly billed as a group of pushovers, either. The Panthers were fresh from their championship run in the SMU Hoops for the Cure Classic last weekend in Dallas.
The Golden Eagles were 30-of-62 (48.4 percent) from the field, while UWM sank 22-of-52 (42.3 percent) shots. Marquette had a plus-5 advantage on the backboards.
The Panthers had four players score in double figures and had a positive assist-to-turnover ratio. UWM's problem was that there just wasn't enough juice left in the team's collective battery.
"I felt good about how our kids played," UWM coach Sandy Botham said. "We just missed shots."
The Golden Eagles used their well-honed transition game during a 9-1 run midway through the second half to pull away and capped it off with a jumper by sophomore Marissa Thrower to take a 66-52 lead.
The Golden Eagles haven't lost to UWM since 1996.
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