After beating St. Johns at home Tuesday to extend their winning streak to three, Marquette traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana, to face the No. 13 Butler Bulldogs Friday and took an 89-85 overtime loss in an electric game.
The first half of this game was back and forth with four lead changes and neither team pulling away. Butler shot 50% from the field in the first half compared to Marquette’s 46%, but the Golden Eagles went into halftime with a 39-35 lead.
A competitive first half only led to more high-level play in the second half, as Butler hung around with Marquette for the entirety of the remainder of the game.
Marquette got contributions from multiple different players tonight as Markus Howard, Sacar Anim, Brendan Bailey and Koby McEwen all scored in double figures, led by Howard’s 26 points.
The Golden Eagles needed all of those contributors to stay in this game, as the Bulldogs were not going anywhere mostly due to their leading scorer in Kamar Baldwin getting his game going.
Baldwin scored just two points in the first half but ended with a game-high 31. He had eight rebounds and five assists.
Marquette was leading the game by six with just 2:35 to go in regulation, but from there Baldwin hit a tough jump shot and a tough layup over two defenders. He also made his free throws after he was intentionally fouled by Bailey when the game was tied.
After the game, head coach Steve Wojciechowski said he thought that Marquette was down by two when he had Bailey intentionally foul and that he apologized to the team.
Baldwin got Butler up to a 3-point lead with just 8.5 seconds to go in the game, and that’s where McEwen came in to save the day. He brought the ball up the court and pulled up from deep, tying the game and sending the matchup to overtime.
In overtime, it was more of the same from Baldwin. He scored 10 of his 31 in the additional period in addition to Sean McDermott’s six points.
Butler took what looked to be a commanding lead, but McEwen had some more magic in him, as he hit a three from the wing followed by another very well contested three on the next possession.
Marquette’s defense then forced a five-second violation on the Bulldogs, and off the inbound Anim hit a three, which cut the Butler lead to just one with less than 30 seconds to go.
However, after two made free throws from Jordan Tucker, Anim drove down the lane and missed an easy layup, which would have cut the lead back down to one.
Howard then missed two desperation shots from beyond the arc and Marquette ended up taking a tough loss in a game they could have won.
For Howard, despite leading the team in scoring it was not a typical performance from him, particularly in the second half and overtime. After the first half, Howard scored just eight points on 3-for-15 shooting from the field. He did, however, have a season-high and game-high six assists.
Anim scored 14 of his 21 points after halftime, and that’s also when McEwen scored all but two of his 13 points. He recorded six points in overtime. McEwen also had a double-double with 11 rebounds, and on top of that he had four assists.
Not to be lost in this game was that Theo John was a force once again down low, recording seven blocks on the night. He also added six rebounds and hit two clutch free throws late in regulation.
Bailey was also big for the Golden Eagles as he tied for the team lead in 3-pointers made with four and was second on the team in rebounds with eight.
Ultimately, the Golden Eagles got key contributions from nearly every player who touched the floor, but the inability to stop Baldwin and the inability for Howard to hit his shots late in the game led to the Golden Eagles coming home with the loss and evening out their BIG EAST record to 4-4.
The Golden Eagles (14-6, 4-4 BIG EAST) head to Cincinnati, Ohio, Wednesday night to face the Xavier Musketeers. Tipoff is at 7:30 p.m.
This article was written by Matt Yeazel. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @MJYeazel.
Jim b • Jan 25, 2020 at 8:14 am
Markus is a blessing and a curse all rolled up together. Last night in a winnable game where his supporting cast played arguably their best game (s), he threw up multiple Il-advised shots and committed two costly turnovers overs in crunch time. The good news is MU had solid offensive contributions from Sacar, Koby and Bailey while Theo was a beast on the glass and defensive end. Truly good teams would have capitalized and won last night’s game. Due to Markus’ hogging the spotlight, MU slips back to the middle of the Big East pack headed for a 5th place conference finish and a double digit NCAA seed if we’re lucky starting yet another one and out visit to “the dance”.