Marquette's latest road trip did not do anything to clear up a cloudy postseason picture, but at least one good thing happened: a victory away from the Al McGuire Center.
Although the team suffered a close loss to Memphis Friday, 58-61, it was a different story Sunday.
The Golden Eagles defeated a weak Saint Louis team (the Billikens were 2-10 in the conference), 70-56.
The victory improved Marquette's lackluster away record to 2-4 going into its final conference game at DePaul Sunday.
"It was a monkey off our back," assistant coach Michelle Nason said. "It was big to pick that one up. Hopefully, it gives us momentum going into this week."
"The win really helped us, especially with our last conference game against DePaul on the road," senior guard Lesley Juedes said.
Against the Billikens, Marquette was able to revert back to the formula it uses to win at home: inside strength and a lot of easy buckets by sophomore center Christina Quaye. She led the team with 21 points on 8-of-11 shooting and also led in rebounding, with 11.
As a whole, Marquette dominated the glass, out-rebounding the over-matched SLU squad, 46-26.
"Our strengths played to their weaknesses," Nason said. "We knew that home or away, they could not control our inside game. Christina ended up with 21 points. We just played our game."
Also handing in nice offensive performances were junior guard Carolyn Kieger with 14 points and Juedes — who continues to be a threat from long distance — with 11 points, nine of which were from beyond the arc.
SLU kept it close in the first period, with the halftime score standing at a 32-31 Marquette advantage.
However, the Billikens did not have the weapons on offense they needed. The only player to score in double figures was freshman guard Mia Johnson, who managed 17 points while going 5-of-13 from the field.
SLU was able to keep it interesting for a while in the second half, but ultimately poor shooting would be their downfall. The Billikens converted just 29.2 percent of their field goal attempts in the second half.
Marquette was finally able to pull away with 12 minutes remaining on a Juedes three, which made the score 47-46. SLU would never lead again.
Friday, it looked like the Golden Eagles would collect a valuable road win, as they played much better than they had in the past. However, they were unable to convert many of their easy looks at the basket and fell to Memphis.
"Actually, if you look at the box score, we didn't play that bad," Juedes said. "What happened was we missed some free throws and easy lay-ups. You can't do that on the road. It really came down to those missed opportunities."
The box score included four Golden Eagles in double figures, led by Juedes with 14. It also showed Marquette to have a slight edge in rebounding (37-35) and turnovers (8-11).
Free throws did indeed play the role of spoiler for the Golden Eagles. They only converted on six of their 15 attempts.
"It was close and we played well," Nason said. "We thought we stepped it up with our focus and energy. But we missed, I think nine lay-ups. We got better focused, but it's the little things."
This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Feb. 22 2005.