Women's Basketball: Marquette 96, Arkansas-Pine Bluff 44

It was 30-7 with 11:51 left in the first half. I think it's important to mention that Marquette STILL won the remaining 31:51 of the game by a score of 66-37, which is a not insubstantial margin of victory to build in just over half an hour.

I don't know if it speaks to the motivation of the players, how the coaching staff is going about motivating the players, or just a commentary on the caliber of opponents, but Marquette is a white hot greasefire of pure offense through 80 minutes this season. The Golden Eagles are pushing the ball up the court on offense, while mixing in a significant amount of zone trap in the early goings to give themselves a jumpstart by forcing a few turnovers.

At least the Wake Forest game had the common decency to be interesting for 20 minutes before exploding in the first few minutes of the second half. This one was over early, and there was almost no flaw in Marquette's performance. The only possible flaw that you could look at is the Free Throw Rate of Arkansas-Pine Bluff. The Lady Lions had an FTR of 49.1%, meaning they shot 49% as many free throws as they did field goals. That's a lousy rate for Marquette to create by committing fouls, and the only reason that they really didn't pay for it is that UAPB shot 7-26 from the charity stripe.

Katherine Plouffe and Katie Young both recorded their second double-double of the season, with Plouffe getting 18 points and 13 rebounds, while Young had 12 points and 11 rebounds. Can this double-double streak by both Plouffe and Young continue past their next contest? I guess we'll wait and see.

Abbie Willenborg Player of the Game - It's hard to take anything in the later goings of the game terribly seriously, so the Abbie goes to Arlesia Morse. She helped break the game wide open early by hitting from distance (3-4 for the game) enough to the point where I kept looking at the scoreboard when she was in the game and forgetting that she had already scored a bunch and would eventually finish with a game high 19 points.

Clare Barnard Undersung Eagle of the Game - I almost wanted to give this one to Morse, as she came off the bench to provide the offensive explosion and I kept forgetting that she had scored so much in the early goings. Instead, I'm going to go with Lauren Tibbs, who had either a point (7) or a rebound (10) for each minute that she was on the floor for Marquette.

Up Next: The Golden Eagles head out on the road this weekend for their first contest away from the Al McGuire Center this season. They'll be in Nashville to take on Vanderbilt at 2pm on Sunday. The Commodores are 2-0 already this season after two blowout wins over Appalachian State and Western Kentucky.