On a day full of anticipation, the most important day of the year for Marquette men’s basketball, the final feeling was one that had not been felt in just under seven years.
Not since their 77-75 loss to Providence on Feb. 3, 2018 had the Golden Eagles lost on National Marquette Day. But that all changed Saturday evening, as No. 25 UConn (16-6, 8-3 Big East) downed No. 9 Marquette (18-4, 9-2 Big East) 77-69 at Fiserv Forum.
It was an unusual game in which MU forced the Huskies into a season-high 25 turnovers. On the contrary, the Golden Eagles were only able to grab nine defensive rebounds because UConn shot a season-high 59.5 percent from the field and 63.2 percent from three.
“The good side was, you know, we forced 25 turnovers, we got our hands on the ball,” Marquette head coach Shaka Smart said. “We did a good job at times of pressuring the ball.
“We were able to create 21 more field goal attempts than UConn. If you told me before the game, ‘You can have 21 more field goal attempts than them, you can have more free throw attempts than them,’ pretty good chance to win. However, we, time and time again lost dangerous guys on their team. Now, UConn’s offense is designed to make you do that and they do that to a lot of teams, but we can be much better, we need to be much better [with] our poise, our discipline in certain situations, just wasn’t good enough.”
Marquette once again got out to a slow start — something that has plagued the team for the better part of Big East play. UConn got out to a quick 14-4 lead thanks to a perfect start from the field (5-for-5). While a record crowd of 18,129 desperately tried to become a factor in the game early on, the first half was controlled entirely by the Huskies.
“I’m more concerned with the details underneath, the why,” Smart said. “We want to get off to a great start every game. Even in our nine wins in Big East play, I think we’ve been down at halftime in five or six of them. It’s not the recipe for being the best you can be.
“…We have to have a better understanding that beating Marquette is a quality win, and that there’s a level of desperation that the other team has when they play us.”
Despite turning the ball over 13 times and committing 12 team fouls that sent the Golden Eagles to the line 20 times, UConn led 42-29 after the first frame of play.
The Golden Eagles’ 9-1 run at the end of the first half helped trim a once-22 point deficit to just 13. The run was capped off by a last second 3-pointer by Chase Ross — who finished the half with 12 points. His backcourt counterpart Kam Jones also had 12 in the period.
The Golden Eagles tried to spark run after run in the second half but were answered by the likes of Solo Ball and Alex Karaban time after time.
When Jones hit a layup to cut the lead to 56-47 with 11:14 to play, it was Ball and Karaban who hit triples on consecutive possessions to extend the lead back up to 15.
When Jones scored four consecutive points with 5:47 to play to put MU down just seven, it was Ball once again who delivered the gut punch to the Golden Eagles, draining a 3-pointer to put the Huskies back up 10.
And finally, for his final act of the night — after a quick 7-3 run that got the Golden Eagles within six points for the first time since the 18:21 mark of the first half — it was Ball who found himself wide open in the corner for the dagger. The sophomore guard finished with a career-high of 25 points while also tying a career-high seven made three pointers on nine attempts.
“This team, I’m proud of the win tonight, but we don’t play with that tenacity that our past teams have played with,” head coach Dan Hurley said. “We got bailed out tonight, but Solo had a crazy shooting night, Alex had a huge late shot clock shot.”
Kam Jones had a team-high 22 points for MU. The Golden Eagles shot 12-for-22 (54 percent) from the free throw line.
After a disappointing end to such a highly anticipated day, Marquette now hits the road for a two-game stretch against two of the top three teams in the Big East standings in St. John’s (19-3, 10-1 Big East) and Creighton (16-6, 9-2 Big East).
“This is, in a way, it’s good because adversity reveals the necessity to grow and to improve,” Smart said. “And that’s all of us.”
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at matthew.baltz@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.
