Burke scored a career high 12 points – including eight of Marquette's first 10 – and grabbed eight rebounds in 24 minutes of play.,”The supposed weakness of this year's men's basketball team is its post play, but it was the contribution of junior forward Dwight Burke that helped the Golden Eagles escape with a 66-55 victory Monday night over Utah Valley State.

Burke scored a career-high 12 points – including eight of Marquette's first 10 – and grabbed eight rebounds in 24 minutes of play. The junior also made his second consecutive regular season start.

"I'm anxious to see how (Burke) keeps progressing," said head coach Tom Crean. "He had his career-high (in points) at the first TV timeout … He's working hard, and he's starting to understand his role."

Crean also said he expects to see increased competition between senior Ousmane Barro and Burke in practice. Barro started 34 games for Marquette last season, but the forward has played just 36 minutes in the first two games of this season.

"After the last game, I just wanted to come out and prove that I could come out there and rebound especially," Burke said. "It's everyone on the front line; we all have to pick up the slack. With all the great guard play that's on this team, there's a lot of questions."

In the first half, the Golden Eagles' guard play was anything but great, with juniors Jerel McNeal, Wesley Matthews and Dominic James combining to shoot 5-for-21 from the field. But Burke made four of five shots during that same stretch, and Marquette outscored Utah Valley State 36-20 in the paint on the night.

"Dwight has the potential to play like that; it's always been up to him to not only show the team, or the coach, but himself that he can play and he can start," James said. "A lot of it is just confidence in himself. He is the most athletic big man that we have."

Still, Crean said there was plenty of room for improvement among his post players. Marquette outrebounded the Wolverines 39-33, but 16 of those rebounds came from McNeal and Matthews.

"Defense is what's going to make the difference," Crean said. "Rebounding has got to become an edge for us, not something that we're trying to get to every night, but something that we know is going to be an edge. We're a long way from that."

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