The smiles were erased. The laughter dissipated. The celebration ended.

What was supposed to be a triumphant night for Marquette women’s basketball morphed into a disconsolate defeat. St. John’s made sure of it.

The Golden Eagles (21-7, 10-7 Big East) always looked a step behind the Red Storm (17-13, 11-7 Big East). They didn’t have the same intensity. They couldn’t match the urgency. And when Marquette needed something to go right, it was nothing given but clanks.

It all went wrong for the Golden Eagles in their final home game of the season, as their Senior Day was spoiled by the Red Storm in a 56-50 loss Tuesdsay night at the Al McGuire Center.

“They played with a sense of urgency,” Marquette head coach Megan Duffy said. “They played tougher than us and, came in and played loose and just did a tremendous job.”

Senior guard Jordan King’s diagnosis was similar to her coach’s.

“Quite frankly, we didn’t come out ready with that same intensity,” King said. “And in the Big East, it’s really hard to compete if you don’t come out, match the other team.”

Golden Eagles response falls short

After going into halftime down three points, Marquette went nearly nine minutes in the third quarter without scoring a basket.

Senior forward Liza Karlen scored at the start of the third frame to cut St. John’s advantage to 30-29, and then the Golden Eagles gave up a 12-0 run to 42-29 with 1:09 remaining in the period. Marquette shot 0-for-10 and 0-for-3 from deep during that stretch, and 3-for-16 overall in the quarter.

While the Golden Eagles scored six points in the last two minutes of the third, they gave up another 7-0 run to open the fourth, which gave the Red Storm a 49-35 lead and erased all the work that had been done to close the gap.

Marquette was able to make it a five point game, 50-45, with a 10-1 run, but then St. John’s started intentionally fouling and the Golden Eagles were unable to dig themselves out of their hole.

“I thought in the first half, we had some great cuts and opportunities. We just missed some few easy baskets. So just even talking to halftime we just said “Hey, stay confident in it. They’re going to start to fall,'” Duffy said. “Really just didn’t get going until that small stretch in the fourth quarter.”

Marquette has worst offensive performance of season

The Golden Eagles’ 50 points is the lowest they’ve scored in a game this year.

“Just shooting the ball and you hope it’s the night where everything’s going in, the basket looks like the ocean, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case tonight,” Duffy said. 

Marquette finished the game shooting 19-for-64 (29.7%) overall — a season low — and 5-for-22 (22.7%) from deep. Only three Golden Eagles — Karlen (15), King (14) and Hare (11) — scored double-digit points.

“Yeah, we didn’t have shots fall early, but we’ve always been a team that’s been able to find ways to win when that happens,” King said. “So whether that’s on the defensive end, rebounding, and those are just a couple areas that I thought we could have been better at.”

Like its shooting, Marquette’s Big East-leading rebounding was nowhere to be seen, as the Golden Eagles were out-numbered on the boards 44-35.

St. John’s was led by senior guards Ber’Nyah Mayo and Unique Drake, who scored 19 and 15 points.

Up next 

The Golden Eagles travel to Butler Saturday in their final regular season game. Tip-off is scheduled for 2 p.m. CST. 

“This one is going to sting a little,” King said, “but hopefully that’s motivation for the next game and be able to finish the regular season with a win.”

This article was written by Sophia Woods. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @SophiaWoods.