With three seasons of Big East basketball under his belt, Jerel McNeal has seen his share of physical games.

But if you ask him, McNeal will tell you that Marquette's 75-53 victory over then-No. 25-ranked West Virginia was as brutal a contest as any he can remember.

"Very physical, very physical. I guess (the officials) had it in their mind that they were going to let us play," McNeal said. "We got a taste of that early on."

McNeal, who finished with 26 points and seven rebounds, must be referring to a broken play that resulted in players from both teams collapsing in a pile on the floor in the opening minutes. Or maybe he is referring to the similar sight that occurred a few minutes later, and again a minute or two after that.

Either way, the result was six team fouls on the Mountaineers in just under five minutes of play. It was then that the officials tucked their whistles deep in their pockets. West Virginia wasn't whistled for its seventh team foul until there was 6:58 left in the half.

At that point the Mountaineers were leading 21-15, and by the half Marquette had closed within two.

Immediately following the intermission, things began to unravel for West Virginia. Hot-handed forward Da'Sean Butler picked up his third foul within the first minute of the half, and after Mountaineer coach Bob Huggins decided to leave him in he proceeded to commit his fourth foul.

With Butler sitting, Marquette mounted a short 11-4 run to take the lead. West Virginia held close, however, and by the seven-minute mark the Marquette lead was still only seven.

"When it started to get away a little bit, I didn't see any sense in letting Da'Sean sit over there and let it get away to the point that we couldn't get back in the game," Huggins said. "I put him back in and he fouls out."

After that the Golden Eagles blew the game open, finishing on a 24-5 run.

"I thought it was a classic Big East fight," coach Buzz Williams said. "Everybody's going to fall down, everybody's going to go after every rebound, and we're size deficient."

Despite the physical nature of the game and Marquette's height disadvantage, Williams elected to play only two reserves the entire game, swingman Jimmy Butler and forward Patrick Hazel. In fact, both McNeal and Dominic James played the entire contest.

With freshman forward Chris Otule now healthy, Marquette's size deficiency becomes less of a glaring weakness. But against West Virginia's five-out motion offense, there was never an appropriate time for Otule to play since he would have been chasing his man outside, Williams said.

Add to that the fact that most of West Virginia's perimeter players stand at least 6-foot-5, as well as the fact that Marquette almost blew a 21-point lead Wednesday against Rutgers, and it become clear why Williams hesitated to go to his bench, even with the brutality that this game presented.

"We knew what type of game it was going to be; it was an ugly game," McNeal said. "We knew what type of style they were going to make it for us, and our main focus coming into the game was that we had to come out and try to match that intensity and match that toughness.

"We didn't play perfect throughout the course of the night, but at the end I feel like we did a great job, and we were able to come out on top."