Liza Karlen’s 22-point, 10-rebound double-double led Marquette women’s basketball in its 52-38 win over Georgetown Wednesday night at the Al McGuire Center.
Karlen being the Golden Eagles’ engine on offense helped them grind out the gritty victory on its Play4Kay night and National Girls and Women in Sports Day.
Here are three takeaways from the win:
Sluggish Start Doesn’t Stop Marquette
Only 11 points were scored in the first quarter. Marquette and Liza Karlen only had four of them, the other seven belonged to Georgetown. It was the fewest points Marquette has scored in the first quarter this season.
The two sides had a combined 14 turnovers — six belonging to the Golden Eagles — and five field goals.
“We knew Georgetown’s style and that they wanted to get the ball inside and limit possessions,” head coach Megan Duffy said. “It felt like a long game in the first quarter and we kept telling the team to keep hanging in there, get rebounds, and get out in transition to execute the offense.”
Even though Marquette turned things around in the second quarter, scoring 16 points, its offensive efforts still yielded its lowest first-half point total of the season, 20.
This is the second game in a row the Golden Eagles had to dig themselves out of a hole, after they trailed 20-2 against the Friars in their 66-62 win Saturday, something they are going to want to clean up as Big East play winds down.
Golden Eagles win despite poor outside shooting
Marquette was the best 3-point shooting team in the Big East heading into Wednesday’s game (35.3%). They finished the game without making a single triple for the first time since Feb. 6, 2022.
While the threes weren’t falling, Marquette was able to establish its paint presence through Karlen and graduate forward Frannie Hottinger, in addition to shooting 20-for-24 from the free-throw line. Hottinger finished with 15 points, nine of which came from the charity stripe.
“Liza really picked up her game in the second half by getting her shot going,” Duffy said. “Frannie being able to make those free throws when both teams were struggling to score was very important.”
Marquette wins the board battle
After being out-rebounded 15-6 in the first quarter, Marquette closed the final thirty minutes of the win out-rebounding Georgetown 32-22.
On top of Karlen’s 10, Hottinger and Jordan King both grabbed six boards.
“We needed to be able to push back and create space to get boards after the first quarter,” Duffy said. “We got better as the game went on by pursuing the basketball in the paint.”
Marquette currently holds the best rebounding margin in the Big East at 6.7.
This story was written by Trevor Hilson. He can be reached at [email protected] or @hilsontrevor on Twitter/X.
