Junior Allazia Blockton appeared to have done it again. Marquette’s leading scorer buried a fadeaway jumper on the right wing to give the Golden Eagles a two-point lead with about four seconds to go.
Instead, Creighton’s Audrey Faber stole the spotlight, driving to the hoop on Marquette junior Erika Davenport and getting the layup plus the foul with two seconds left. Faber’s ensuing free throw lifted the Blue Jays (14-9, 8-5 BIG EAST) to a 74-73 upset over the Golden Eagles (15-8, 9-3 BIG EAST) and snapped Marquette’s 16-game home winning streak.
“Our team has to learn,” Marquette head coach Carolyn Kieger said. “We all as a group, myself and the coaching staff included, we’ve got to evolve. We’ve got to start fixing different issues and the same ones over and over.”
Considering Creighton’s stellar shooting, the odds were stacked against Marquette making any comeback. The Bluejays hit 17 of 25 shots in the middle two quarters. Creighton’s shooters were especially hot from beyond the 3-point arc in that stretch, hitting 5 of 7 attempts.
Kieger thought her team shouldn’t have been fooled by Creighton’s offensive sets. “It’s nothing different than they always run — their motion offense,” Kieger said. “We didn’t contest shots well enough, our awareness wasn’t there, we’re thinking two seconds two slow. We give Creighton a lot of credit; they run their stuff very well.”
Junior Erika Davenport shouldered Marquette’s scoring load during Creighton’s hot streak. She came back from not playing in the win over Providence Friday to drop 23 points on 11-of-16 shooting and pull down 10 rebounds. Four of those rebounds came on the offensive glass; she was a big part of the team grabbing 41 percent of its own misses.
“She was very dominant in the low post today,” Kieger said. “It was nice to have her back in the lineup.”
The Creighton lead grew as high as 11 points with 9:10 left in the fourth quarter off a jumper from senior Sydney Lamberty, who scored a team-high 18 points and knocked down seven of her 11 shots. Immediately after that, the Golden Eagles found their groove, going on a 9-0 run in the next three minutes. Three Creighton turnovers led to four Blockton points.
A Lamberty layup and free throw at the 3:25 mark put Creighton ahead by six and figured to end Marquette’s comeback before it reached maturity. However, Davenport banked in a layup 14 seconds later. After Marquette forced a turnover and missed two close shots, a pair of clanked free throws by Creighton freshman Temi Carda gave the ball back to Marquette. Junior point guard Danielle King hit a jumper with the shot clock winding down on the other end to cut the Jays’ lead to two with 2:05 left.
Blockton then drove into the lane on Marquette’s next possession, gathering her own blocked shot and scoring under the hoop to tie the game at 21.
“If we would have played like we played the last six minutes (the whole day), we’d be a lot happier than we are right now,” Kieger said.
After Blockton’s jumper to finish the day with 20 points and give Marquette the lead, Faber banked in her layup to finish a 16-point, eight rebound day.
Sunday’s loss knocks Marquette out of first place, giving the DePaul Blue Demons a one-game lead in the BIG EAST standings. The next opportunity to make up that ground comes on Friday, when Marquette begins a two-game road trip in Cincinnati at Xavier.
When asked what the team will be working on in the interim, Kieger simply said, “defense.”
