On a somber night where the Marquette men’s basketball team paid homage to the fallen Marquette legend Hank Raymonds, it was an injury that overshadowed an 86-50 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Injury-prone senior forward Joe Fulce went down in the 13th minute of the second half, clutching his left knee and screaming in pain. He was not able to walk off the court on his own and was assisted off the court.
“He’s got a shot knee, it’s been shot,” coach Buzz Williams said. “I would say it’s completely shot. That’s all I know.”
Williams said his team was preparing to visit Joe at the hospital after the press conference and they would find out more about the injury there.
“It was very tough (to celebrate the victory),” junior forward Jae Crowder said. “It’s hard to pick it up, pick up the energy.”
Fulce had missed three games already this season dealing with a left knee injury and had 40 CCs of fluid drained from it last week.
“I didn’t even see when he fell,” freshman guard Reggie Smith said. “We’re just going to pray for him and hopefully he gets better.”
As for the game itself, freshman guard Vander Blue paced the Golden Eagles scoring a career-high 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting. Blue also padded the stat sheet fiver boards, three assists and two steals.
“That’s big for (Blue) going into these tough games,” Crowder said. “That’s great to see from a freshman. I’m very proud of him.”
Four other Golden Eagles reached double figures in points with forwards Jimmy Butler and Crowder each notching 15. Butler also added 9 rebounds to lead Marquette in that category.
“This is by far the best we’ve played,” Williams said. “I think our guys are beginning to figure out how we want to play on both ends of the floor.”
Marquette jumped all over the Islanders, grabbing a 25-4 lead going into the second media timeout of the first half. The lead remained around 20 for most of the half until a 13-0 Marquette run pushed its advantage to 21 going into the intermission.
The second half saw more of the same from the two teams. Marquette was up 58-30 at the time of the Fulce injury. And would ultimately go on to win 85-50.
Marquette will now prepare to take on the Wisconsin-Madison Badgers on Saturday at the Bradley Center. Tip-off is at 1:30 p.m. so be sure to follow the live blog as we bring you updates from the in-state rivalry.
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