• Marquette Tops Seton Hall, 4-0 in Big East

    In a game that included 44 foul calls and 27 turnovers, Marquette topped Seton Hall 69-62 on Wednesday night. In a nutshell, it was another ugly game. Nonsensical fouls, bad passes, poor decisions... yet the Golden Eagles move to 4-0 in the Big East where they sit atop the conference with Louisville and Syracuse.

    Jamil Wilson agrees that the game was not perfect. "We still have yet to play a perfect game, and I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon."

    Seton Hall has been struggling this year, and have been hot hard with recent injuries. This was supposed to be a game that Marquette would have won big, but they didn't. "It was ugly." Said Marquette Head Coach Buzz Williams. "We're 4-0, but we could easily be 0-4. We could be 1-3, 2-2. We've had two overtime games. This one was a blow out, we won by seven. I don't think we will blow anybody in our league out, it will be like this all season long. I don't think we're great. I'm not sure what we're good at, at times, but if we can be good at winning, maybe that will be enough."

    It wasn't all ugly, the Golden Eagles did have quite a few bright spots. When you have a new group of leaders, and an experienced transfer in Trent Lockett, it will take time to adjust. On court moves need to be anticipated or expected by your teammates, they need to have a feel for each other. "Trent Lockett has been huge in his ability to absorb new teams, new personnel. I think we are in a much better space as far as understanding how we need to live (together) over the last two weeks than where we were maybe a month ago." said Williams.

    What Williams was saying, is that Marquette is coming together as a team, and Jamil Wilson agreed. "As we continue to grow and as we continue to figure things out as a team and mesh together more and grind out tough games like Pittsburgh and grind out ugly games, you add more to your house. We're constantly trying to build in practice and every game you learn something whether you win or lose and fortunately we've been winning."

    Whether it was an ugly game or not, MU did come out with the win, and are in first place in the Big East. Williams and his staff did an excellent job of scouting Seton Hall. Against the Seton Hall they forced 17 turnovers, several of which were on the wings where they trapped the Monitors early in the first half, often forcing bad shots as the shot clock expired. "We've been really good at playing to the scouting report over the last four games." said Williams.

    By forcing the pressure high out on the wings, the Golden Eagles gave themselves additional time to adjust to ball screens. During the game as well as other games from time to time you may have heard the coaches screaming 'FIRE! FIRE!'. Williams explained.

    "This first started last year against Wisconsin. We wanted to pressure them, but not fall into their on ball screens. So we defend those screens differently in the last 10 seconds of the shot clock. We needed a word for the players to identify it, so we started yelling "FIRE!". It worked well then, and it has worked well a few times since then, so we continued to use it, and it was effective tonight."

    An unusual thing happened down the stretch, Vander Blue drew a charge against Seton Hall. The crowd responded, Buzz responded and even ESPN's Steve Homer" True responded. "I was so happy, I would have stood on top of Homer's head if I could have." Said Williams, "But I didn't want to take anything away from what he did. Now he's probably 1-1 on charges in his 88 games at Marquette."

    You can see Buzz and Homer's reactions here.....


    MU now travels to Cincinnati to take on the Bearcats this weekend to try and extend their Big East winning streak.





    Box Score

    Seton Hall Pirates 12-6 (1-4)
    Name MIN FGM-A 3PM-A FTM-A OREB REB AST STL BLK TO PF PTS
    Eugene Teague 31 2-10 0-0 1-2 5 11 4 0 0 6 5 5
    Aaron Cosby 37 5-14 3-10 2-2 0 1 3 1 0 3 2 15
    Kyle Smyth 36 2-6 2-6 2-2 2 5 3 0 0 0 2 8
    Haralds Karlis 39 4-7 2-4 4-5 0 6 0 1 0 0 3 14
    Fuquan Edwin 30 5-11 1-3 1-1 1 3 2 2 1 2 5 12
    Tom Maayan 11 2-4 1-2 0-3 0 1 3 0 0 2 4 5
    Aaron Geramipoor 16 1-1 0-0 1-2 1 2 0 0 0 0 3 3
    Team 1 2 4
    TOTALS FGM-A 3PM-A FTM-A OREB REB AST STL BLK TO PF PTS
    21-53 9-25 11-17 9 29 15 4 1 17 24 62
    39.6% 36.0% 64.7%

    Marquette Golden Eagles 13-3 (4-0)
    Name MIN FGM-A 3PM-A FTM-A OREB REB AST STL BLK TO PF PTS
    Juan Anderson 11 1-2 1-1 0-1 0 2 1 0 0 2 0 3
    Chris Otule 15 1-2 0-0 0-0 1 6 0 0 2 0 3 2
    Junior Cadougan 25 3-6 1-1 2-4 0 2 2 0 0 2 4 9
    Vander Blue 32 3-7 1-4 4-4 0 2 4 1 0 2 3 11
    Trent Lockett 30 2-6 0-1 1-2 1 6 2 0 0 1 3 5
    Jamil Wilson 28 3-8 0-4 4-6 2 5 2 0 0 0 0 10
    Jamal Ferguson 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Todd Mayo 16 2-4 2-3 6-6 0 1 0 0 0 3 0 12
    Derrick Wilson 14 0-2 0-1 0-0 0 2 2 2 0 0 3 0
    Steve Taylor Jr. 5 0-1 0-0 0-1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
    Davante Gardner 23 5-8 0-0 7-8 3 5 2 1 0 0 3 17
    TOTALS FGM-A 3PM-A FTM-A OREB REB AST STL BLK TO PF PTS
    20-46 5-15 24-32 7 31 15 4 2 10 20 69
    43.5% 33.3% 75%