,”In the days leading up to No. 24 Marquette's game against Rutgers, head coach Tom Crean spoke highly of the Scarlet Knights' penchant for knocking off top Big East teams.

Lazar Hayward warned that there were "no cupcakes" in the Big East, and was quick to point out that despite Rutgers' early season losses to St. Peter's and Rider, the Scarlet Knights' wins over Pittsburgh and Villanova in late January proved that no conference win comes easy.

But there was no upset bid here as Marquette, led by its usual cast of characters, used a 25-8 run at the start the second half to beat Rutgers, 78-48.

"Records never matter in this league," Crean said. "We never post them, we never look at them.every team is capable in this league."

After Marquette's game against St. John's Feb. 20, several players expressed disappointment in their performance down the stretch. In that game Marquette allowed the Red Storm to rally in the second half during a 73-64 win.

"The bottom line is, we wanted to come out and play an overall much better 40 minutes," Crean said. "The other night against St. John's we played about 27, 28 minutes of really high quality basketball and then we took our foot off the gas a little bit."

A ball-hawking Marquette defense kept the Golden Eagles' collective foot on the gas against the Scarlet Knights, keying a fast-paced Marquette offense that racked up 35 transition points.

After shooting 52.0 percent from the field in the first half, Rutgers (10-18, 2-13 Big East) shot just 27.6 percent in the second half, including a 20.0 percent mark from beyond the three-point arc. Marquette, in contrast, shot 65.5 percent in the second half and 56.1 percent for the game.

"We're not a real good shooting team, we're much better getting to the rim," Rutgers head coach Fred Hill said. "We settled for too many threes, even in the first half…we were just trying to get it all back at once."

Jerel McNeal, who finished with five steals, and the rest of the Marquette defense hounded Rutgers into 23 turnovers, including 12 in the second half. The Golden Eagles were the beneficiaries of 28 points from those turnovers.

"Our best offense is our defense," Wes Matthews said. "A lot of teams try to say that, but we're one that shows it. When were in your face getting stops and rebounds and stealing the ball, that's what we do."

On the offensive end, there were few surprise contributors for Marquette (20-6, 10-5), which got a balanced scoring effort from its trio of junior guards. McNeal scored 14 points on 7-of-10 shooting, and pulled down a team-high seven rebounds.

Matthews, who had been in a small scoring slump, chipped in 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting, and Dominic James survived a rolled ankle in the first half to return and score 13 points for the Golden Eagles.

Hayward continued the balanced scoring for Marquette, leading all scorers with 15 points and grabbing five rebounds. The Golden Eagles outrebounded Rutgers 32-27 for the game.

The win was Marquette's fourth straight after rallying down the stretch in an 86-83 loss to Notre Dame Feb. 9.

"It's not like anything magical has happened," Crean said. "(The players) just understand how we have to play, that's the biggest thing. If you can get that in February.that's a big deal."

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