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When: Friday, November 29, 2013, at 4:30pm Central
Where: South Point Arena & Equestrian Center (no, I'm not joking) in Las Vegas, Nevada
Audio/Visual: Tennessee Tech's site claims there will be streaming audio here, and it appears to be free. Other than that, nothing doing. Not even live stats.
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWBB
Are you ready for some Golden Eagle on Golden Eagle violence?
This afternoon, YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles will take on SOMEONE ELSE'S Tennesee Tech Golden Eagles in the South Point Thanksgiving Shootout. The SPTS is an eight team, two day event, where everyone plays a pair of pre-scheduled games instead of the tournament format that Marquette's men's team is participating in at the Wooden Legacy.
Marquette is coming off of a 17 point loss at home to #2 Duke last week Sunday. I'm not sure how a team that's unranked but receiving votes losing by 17 to the #2 team in the country justifies a team losing ground in the polls, but that's what happened. There's some voters who haven't lost their minds, as MU picked up 4 points in the AP poll, but wins today and tomorrow would be helpful as always.
Katie Young had the best week of any Marquette player last week, as she averaged 24.5 points and 13.0 rebounds in MU's two games. That was good enough to earn her a spot on the Big East Weekly Honor Roll. Both Young and Katherine Plouffe have posted a double-double in four out of Marquette's five games, with at least one of them reaching that mark in every game this season. Terri Mitchell has no problems digging deep into her bench, as nine Golden Eagles have appeared in every game this season and eight of those players are averaging at least 11 minutes per game. This balance will pay dividends for Marquette as they'll have to play two games 24 hours apart over the next two days.
As for Tennessee Tech, they will try to claim that they're 2-2 on the season, but I refuse to count 53 point wins against NAIA teams as regular season games. This means we'll call TTU 1-2 on the year after they broke into the win column in their last time out, a 6 point victory over Valparaiso. Their other two contests on the year? Two road losses: a 118-71 dumptrucking at the hands of Akron and a 90-45 destruction at Mississippi State. Hoo boy, that can't be fun.
While they haven't had a fun start to the season, TTU was picked to win the Eastern Division of the Ohio Valley Conference. They picked up 12 of the first place votes and finished a scant four points in front of second place Belmont. Two Golden Eagles (man, this is confusing already) made the preseason all-OVC team. Junior guard Diamond Henderson was First Team All-OVC last year, and she's off to a hot start this season, averaging 16 points per game and shooting 55% behind the arc. Senior forward Molly Heady shoots 56% on three point attempts and she lets fly a little bit more than Henderson. She's not having a statistically outstanding start to her season (7/4/2), but there must be some reason why the OVC coaches like her.