One of the most difficult things to do in sports is beat a team three times in one year. But DePaul did just that to Marquette’s women’s basketball team this year with its 64-54 victory over the Golden Eagles in the second round of the Big East Tournament.
Marquette earned its third date of the season with DePaul after fending off Villanova 53-49 on Friday night in a game the Golden Eagles had, at one point, an 11-point lead (36-25) with 13:44 left in the game.
“I think when we played them earlier we got into an offensive rhythm so even when they scored it did not matter because we took a pretty healthy lead,” coach Terri Mitchell said after the Villanova game. “Unfortunately, we could not continue to build that lead. We started missing a lot of easy shots and I saw our players getting tighter offensively. When that happened, Villanova made us pay for it.”
In the DePaul game, Marquette never led at any point during the game and DePaul had its largest lead of 16 points with 8:08 left in the game.
Sophomore forward Jessica Pachko said it was a difference in mentality that led to the two different performances.
“I felt like against Villanova we came out aggressive right away,” Pachko said. “Against DePaul we came out on our heels, rather than put DePaul on theirs. When we finally got off of our heels we were never able to get the lead.”
The game plan was well-executed, Pachko said, but the team just didn’t make the shots it need to in order to win.
Junior forward Paige Fiedorowicz led the way for the team on the offensive side of the ball during its two-game tournament run. Fiedorowicz averaged 11.5 points per game and led the team with seven free throw attempts over the weekend.
Even with one victory over the weekend, the team’s 3-point shooting was poor, statistically speaking. Marquette shot 25 percent (3-12) from behind the arc against Villanova and 18.8 percent (3-16) against DePaul.
As for why the 3-pointers weren’t dropping, Pachko said the team was just off so the shots didn’t drop.
“I really don’t think it was any great defense, of course defenders are there on you all the time, but (the shots) just weren’t falling,” Pachko said. “We just weren’t able to get into an offensive groove.”
Fiedorowicz said the team should look to pound the ball inside more in order to open up better looks at outside shots.
“When we get it inside we’re more successful,” Fiedorowicz said. “It’s a higher percentage shot, and when you make a few of them it opens things up for the outside players. When posts get double-teamed they can dish it out to wing players and get assists.”
On the season Marquette shot 28.3 percent (128-453) from the 3-point line. The Golden Eagles don’t have to hit threes to win games, but it would go a long ways towards them being more successful in a potential NIT run.
