Survive and Advance: Marquette 87, Providence 66

We'll have more in the morning, but, for now, the highlights:

• Survived.  Advanced.  Those are the two most important things moving forward.
• Jimmy Butler messed around and almost got himself a triple-double tonight: 19 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists.*  Alas, because he didn't collect those last two dimes, Josh Gasser remains the only college player in Wisconsin to put up a triple-double this year.  But Josh Gasser is probably a seraphim, so, you know ...
• ANYWAY, back to teams that matter: JFB also cemented his status as The Marshon Killer, as he held Providence's first-team All Big East player to 20 points on 7-18 shooting.  For the season, then, Brooks scored 37 points with Jimmy guarding him.  For point of reference: Brooks scored 35 against Notre Dame in one half.
• God, I'm going to miss Jimmy.
• Darius Johnson-Odom wasn't gun shy tonight, putting up eight points in the blink of an eye and forcing Keno Davis to call one of his three first-half timeouts.  DJO kept gunnin' for the duration, finishing with 17 attempts, including six from three-point land, en route to a team-high 23 points.*  KEEP. SHOOTING. DARIUS.
• Vander Blue started skittish but finished with a flourish, collecting seven rebounds (three on offense) and hitting a couple of layups.*  If we're going to do anything going forward, we'll need efforts like that.  Good on ya, Vander.
• Erik Williams and Jamail Jones: welcome to the show.*
• If one of the goals of the now-infamous Closed Door Meeting of 2011 was to find Jae Crowder's game, it worked.  The Absolut Weapon had 10 points, hit a triple, grabbed four boards, and even dished out two assists.  Solid bounce back after the disaster at Seton Hall.*
• The numbers tonight are gaudy: a 49-31 rebounding advantage (including 17 offensive boards), 20 assists on 32 made buckets, just 11 turnovers in a fast-paced game, 27 trips to the free throw line, seven steals ... all of which brings us to this:

You may have noticed the asterisks above.  Why asterisks, you ask?  Because I couldn't find a small enough JPEG of Keno Davis's face.

Let's keep in mind the lesson we should have learned after Providence: Round One a week-and-a-half ago: that team is a white hot mess, playing out the string for a coach who's going to be sent packing as soon as tomorrow (could it be any sooner?).  Don't make the mistake I did and try to divine any deeper meaning from this game, because the long and short of it is this: Marquette seal-clubbed a bad team.  Celebrate it for 40 more minutes, then delete the program and move on.

The real work starts tomorrow with Huggy Bear and the 'Eers.  Same time, same channel.

Until then.