UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Marquette women’s basketball’s two biggest weaknesses were its downfall in the Big East tournament quarterfinals.
The No. 4 seed Golden Eagles (18-12, 12-9 Big East) have been plagued by turnovers and scoring droughts all season, and it was no different on Saturday in a 57-44 defeat to No. 5 seed Creighton (16-14, 12-9). The Golden Eagles shot a season-low 29.3% from the field — including 7-of-24 on layups — and coughed up 17 giveaways.
“I think we played well enough defensively to be in this game,” Marquette head coach Cara Consuegra said. “We just picked a really, really bad day to be really poor on offense.”
Trailing by one point at the end of the first quarter, 12-11, it looked like Marquette would fight off another slow start for not the first time this season. Then, the second period opened up and junior guard Jordan Meulemans hit a 3-pointer, senior guard Jaidynn Mason fired a jumper and junior forward Skylar Forbes drew a four-point play.
Forbes’ free throw extended Marquette’s lead to six, ahead 20-14 with 7:35 left in the second quarter. But that scoring spree proved to be a mirage. Nothing more than what could have been for the Golden Eagles, not what was.
Over the last seven minutes of the first half, Marquette had eight turnovers and missed all 10 of its shots. Creighton took advantage of the blue & gold’s inability to execute and rode a 10-0 run to a four-point lead at halftime.
The Golden Eagles finished the first half shooting 8-of-27 and 2-of-8 from deep, the shooting inefficiencies made worse by their 13 giveaways.
“The number of paint shots that we missed, the number of turnovers in the first half that contributed to our poor offense,” Consuegra said, “that’s the story of the game.”
MU’s scoring woes picked up where they left off in the second half.
A layup by Bluejays graduate student forward Grace Boffeli and a swished 3-pointer from senior guard Kennedy Townsend prompted Consuegra to burn a timeout after less than three minutes. When she made the signal, it had been one full quarter’s worth of play — dating back to the first half — since her team made a basket.
Junior guard Halle Vice finally stopped the freezing at the 6:33 mark, 11 minutes and two seconds of game time with zero points to show for it. Just like in its loss in New Jersey to Seton Hall on Jan. 14, that over 10-minute scoring drought was a sign of doom for Marquette.
Vice found the backboard again a short while later to trim the Creighton lead to just five. But, swiftly, the Bluejays would respond with their knockout punch.
In just two minutes and 27 seconds, they embarked on another 11-0 scoring run to put the game out of reach. Creighton’s lone All-Big East first team honoree Ava Zediker started the streak, which ended with the Bluejays ahead 40-24 with 3:28 to go in the third quarter.
The Bluejays made the Golden Eagles lean on Forbes and Vice throughout the game. Vice finished with another double-double with 12 points & 11 rebounds — her first since the Feb. 4 matchup with Providence — and Forbes led MU with 16 points.
Creighton limited Jaidynn Mason to just six points on 1-of-6 shooting. Kennedi Perkins was unable to find the net despite taking 10 shots and Lee Volker only had four, her first of two baskets coming with 1:57 left in the third period.
“Sometimes the ball bounces like that, and it’s unfortunate,” Consuegra said of the shooting.
As the clock ticked down at Mohegan Sun Arena and little more than two minutes remained, Meulemans hit a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to 10. But, any flicker of hope was extinguished after Townsend drilled one of her own on the next possession.
Thus, the Golden Eagles lost in the Big East tournament quarterfinals for the second-straight year. Consuegra said that despite being a back-to-back one-and-done, this setback is just a bump in the road.
“It hurts, you want more from this, but things don’t always happen when you want them to, they happen on time,” Consuegra said. “So, we have to keep putting the time in, and we’ll keep going.”
This article was written by Mikey Severson. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @MikeySeversonMU.
