It always looked as if the first team to reach 50 points would win the game.
Indeed, amid the deluge of missed shots, Marquette beat Saint Louis to the punch and escaped with a win — but it took two overtimes to get there.
The scrappy 55-51 victory at the Savvis Center Saturday snapped the Golden Eagles' three-game losing skid, but complications with Travis Diener's ankle injury dampened the celebrations.
Diener sat out his second straight game because he was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his left ankle Thursday.
Diener's teammates struggled to score without him. Marquette (15-5, 3-4 in C-USA) settled for perimeter shots and finished the game with a season-low 29.7 field-goal percentage, but the team found its outside touch at the right time.
Down 42-34 with less than three minutes left in regulation, Marquette scored eight unanswered points to send the game into overtime.
Steve Novak, who had scored just 13 points on 5-18 shooting in his last three games, buried a three-pointer to cut the lead to five. The junior forward finished with 23 points and seven rebounds, and he kept his team close in a second half which saw Marquette play over 11 minutes without a field goal.
Junior guard Joe Chapman's three-pointer and a Dameon Mason put-back tied the score at 42. Chapman came through again when he sunk a three-pointer with 13 seconds left in double-overtime that sealed the win.
"Today was not about being pretty," Marquette head coach Tom Crean told the Associated Press. "It was about being efficient and just grinding it out."
Mason, who had problems unlocking the Billiken defense for most of the game (4-19 from the field, four turnovers), scored all five Marquette points in the first overtime period.
SLU (5-14, 3-4) also shot the ball poorly (32.0 field-goal percentage), but unlike Marquette, most of the team's misses came inside the paint. Forwards Izik Ohanon and Ian Vouyoukas combined for 25 points and 21 rebounds but shot a combined 7-22 from the field.
"You've got to be prepared to take what the game gives you," Crean told the AP. "I was proud of they way they all played at the end."
Marquette forward Marcus Jackson helped limit SLU to five offensive rebounds while tying his collegiate high with 16 total rebounds.
The Golden Eagles led 27-22 early in the second half before the Billikens took advantage of the 11-minute dry spell, going on a 17-4 run.
Late in the game, Marquette used a full-court press that forced SLU into several crucial turnovers, including an errant pass from guard Danny Brown when his team was holding the ball for a final shot at the end of the first overtime.
This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Feb. 1 2005.