When the Marquette men's basketball team lost to Villanova Tuesday, there was one image that was burned into the mind of coach Buzz Williams — the 102 underneath Villanova's name on the scoreboard, as in the number of points the Wildcats dumped on the Golden Eagles.

To Williams, the reason Villanova was able to shoot 58.7 percent from the field (including 72 percent in the second half) and top the century mark despite hitting just 15-of-26 free throws, was simple.

"We all grew up eating hamburgers," Williams said. "And I think over the last 10 days we probably thought that we deserved to eat steaks."

The solution, of course, was to get back to the fundamentals, and for Williams that meant practicing defense. The whole week, in fact, without spending a single minute practicing the offense going into Saturday's 73-59 win over St. John's.

"We're scoring enough points; we're shooting a great percentage offensively," senior guard Dominic James said as if restating a direct quote from his coach. "But we know that we can't win any games if we allow teams to dictate what they want to do on offense."

The result of the defensive focus in practice was exactly what Marquette (21-4, 10-2 Big East) expected — on both ends of the floor. The Golden Eagles shot 44 percent from the field in the first half, but more importantly, they held the Red Storm to just 37.5 percent (9-of-24).

The offense came eventually. It took a half for Marquette to shake off the rust, but the team rebounded in the second half to post a 56.7 percent shooting percentage despite hitting just 1-of-7 from the 3-point line.

"We haven't touched a basketball, on the offensive end, since we've been back (from Villanova)," James said. "And that's no exaggeration."

When the offense returned in the second half, the Golden Eagles' newfound defensive enthusiasm hung around as well. Led by Jerel McNeal (20 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and five steals), who reminded fans that he is a former Big East Defensive Player of the Year and not just the school's all-time leading scorer, Marquette tallied 14 steals and forced 24 St. John's turnovers.

As a basis of comparison, Marquette averages 8.2 steals per game and forces 15.7 turnovers per game.

"They've got a very good team. They're tough to play against," St. John's coach Norm Roberts said. "We just turned the ball over way too much tonight."

Williams has preached defense all season and continually said that it is those defensive stops that allow Marquette to transition into its high-octane offense. But it appears to have taken two-straight losses and a dethronement as king of the Big East hill for his players to buy into his philosophy.

"Any time you can hold a team to 24 points and 37 percent in 20 minutes, I think you're trending in the right direction," Williams said. "Our guys are much more confident in what we are doing defensively, and we kind of got some mojo back in relation to how we know that we have to play."

The problem may have been as simple as overconfidence, but regardless of what got into Marquette during its 9-0 start to the conference season, one thing is clear – the losses to South Florida and Villanova effectively grabbed Marquette by the lapels and shook some sense into the team.

Williams preferred to go back to the meat analogy: "We're not a filet mignon team."