Marquette men’s basketball (12-19, 7-13 Big East) picked a suitable time to have its best week of the season.
First-year guards Nigel James Jr. and Adrien Stevens got the party started Wednesday night, combining for 41 points in MU’s 78-56 win at Providence.
Then, it was a 68-62 upset of No. 4 UConn that marked the first time the Golden Eagles had won consecutive games this season since beating Albany and Southern to start the year.
Here are two notes from the 2-0 week:
Marquette’s defensive intensity
The Golden Eagles’ defense has been a work in progress throughout the season.
There were times they looked like a sieve early in the year, like when they suffered 100 points to Indiana in Chicago, or gave up 89 points to a Maryland team at home that was missing three of its best players.
But over the course of the last month, the Golden Eagles defense has turned it up a notch.
From the start of the season until a loss at Butler on Jan. 23, a span of 21 games, Marquette ranked 110th in the country in defensive efficiency on BartTorvik.com. Over the final 10 games of the regular season, it ranked ninth in the country with an adjusted defensive efficiency of 94.5.
Over its last eight games, Marquette is averaging 9.6 steals per game and has held its opponents to an average of 38.2% from the field.
That includes forcing Butler to its third-worst field goal percentage of the season (32.8%) on National Marquette Day, helping Villanova to its fourth-worst shooting performance of Big East play (39%) on Feb. 10 and holding the Huskies to their worst shooting performance of the season (35.6%) on Saturday.
“Just the willingness to play with multiple efforts,” MU head coach Shaka Smart said. “If you come in our practice gym in Kasten Gymnasium, there’s three defensive foundations on the wall. The middle one, it says ‘multiple efforts.’”
The next day after UConn, senior guard Chase Ross was named to the Big East’s inaugural all-defensive team after posting a league-leading 70 steals.
MU’s offense has struggled mightily at times, but its defense has kept it in games. If the two can come together this week in New York City, the No. 7 seed Golden Eagles are going to be a tough out.
“It’s been a year that, at times, we’ve been good on one end and not as good on the other end,” Smart said. “You got to put them both together if you want to win in March.”
‘They got one of the best cultures in college basketball’
It’s difficult to properly articulate how different the feeling around MU is on March 10 compared to where they were two months ago on Jan. 10.
Then, Marquette was 6-11 and had won just one game against a high-major opponent. Shooting percentages were low, but the vibes were even lower. The thought of the Golden Eagles even having a chance to win a game in the Big East tournament was hard to fathom.
But over the last two months, the Golden Eagles have grown up. The first-years began to look like seasoned veterans and the seniors finally started to step up and make clutch plays. But, more than anything, Marquette learned how to win.
Now, the blue & gold walk into ‘The World’s Most Famous Arena’ having won three of their last four contests while being arguably the hottest team in the conference.
“The first Providence game (on Jan. 19) was unlike this game in a lot of ways,” Smart said on Saturday. “But it was really important for us to win because it’s a close game, and we’re able to go win a close game down the stretch.
“And since then, we’ve been able to win some. We’ve had some where we’ve come up short, but the belief has grown with each game.”
The Huskies cruised to a 73-57 win against Marquette on Jan. 4 in Storrs. But one thing was clear to head coach Dan Hurley when UConn made the return trip on Saturday: this wasn’t the same team they saw at Gampel Pavilion.
“I said that to Shaka before the game, like ‘I can’t believe what your team looks like right now,’ ” Hurley said. “Because when we played them the first time, they were bad on offense and bad on defense.
“They were just so young. They were so, so young. They had a brutal non-conference. It was tough sledding.
“But when you have a culture like this and a coach like this … they got one of the best cultures in college basketball.”
What’s on tap?
Marquette will face No. 10 seed Xavier in the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament on Wednesday. Tip-off is set for 5:30 p.m. CST.
The Golden Eagles and Musketeers split the season series this season, each team picking up its win at home.
“Everyone is 0-0 starting this week,” Smart said. “But we certainly want to take momentum from this week into the Big East tournament.”
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.
