The Quick and Dirty: Wisconsin 49, Marquette 38

For the second straight year, Badger Hate Week went out with a whimper, as YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles got put in a sleeper hold by the bigger, stronger Badgers and dropped an ugly 49-38 decision to Wisconsin on Saturday.

The first half started out OK, as Matt Carlino drilled a triple from the corner to put Marquette up 3-0. And things were still looking alright at the first media timeout, as Duane Wilson and Steve Taylor hit bunnies and MU was down 9-7. The next seven minutes of game time were somewhere south of pleasant, though, as the Golden Eagles didn't have a field goal, a free throw, or anything resembling a clue on offense -- analysis of this stretch, in 17 words: it might not be an optimal strategy to constantly drive at the 7-footer planted under the rim -- and Wisconsin jumped out to a 17-7 lead. A couple of buckets by Carlino drew MU within 4, but back to back 3s from career student-athlete Josh Gasser staked Wisconsin to a 25-15 lead at the break.

Marquette came out rarin' to go after intermission, as baskets from Taylor and Carlino and a transition 3-pointer from Juan Anderson trimmed the deficit to three and forced Bo Ryan to call a timeout (and kick a puppy) with 17 minutes to go. But three offensive rebounds and a punch-in-the-gut 3 from Gasser restored the margin to six on the next possession. The teams traded 3-pointers for a couple minutes and Marquette again rallied to cut Bucky's lead to just two with 8:51 left in the game, but Gasser's fourth triple of the game gave UW some breathing room, and baskets from Traevon Jackson and Frank Kaminsky gave the Badgers a 9-point edge with six minutes to go and put this one to bed.

Matt Carlino was mostly good today -- he even busted out a nifty spin move in the paint that nobody knew he had in his repertoire -- and paced Marquette with 18 points and 5 rebounds, although he had five turnovers, too. Kaminsky led UW with 15, Josh Gasser was a pain in our ass for the last time, and Bo got really pissed when the refs called fouls, so in that regard, the game went according to script.

Until tomorrow, then, this is your post-game dejection thread.