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Alright, win #1 is in the books. That's the good news.
The .... well, it's not bad news, but the other side of that is Marquette got their first win of the season after four straight losses to open the slate by having an unbelievable offensive night. It's going to be hard to duplicate the kind of shooting that MU displayed against FIU, as they hit 10 of 18 three point attempts and posted an effective field goal percentage of just over 60%.
Going forward, Marquette is going to have to find other ways to win, even if they end up being able to rely on three point shooting. One of those ways is going to have to be defense. The Golden Eagles had an okay defensive outing against FIU, allowing the Panthers to score just slightly more than one point per possession. Generally speaking, that's not going to get the job done on a regular basis. At this point, with eight freshmen on the roster, I think it's safe to say that defense at the Division 1 level is still a work in progress. You can figure out how to score faster than you can figure out how to stop your opponent, so I'm okay with the defense needing some time to come together.
Last thing: The "Allazia Blockton for Rookie Of The Year" campaign starts now. She's top 10 in the Big East in both points and rebounds per game right now after going for 24 and 11 against FIU.
Match #6: vs Richmond (5-0)
When: Sunday, November 29, 2015, at 11am Central
Where: FIU Arena in Miami, FL
Audio/Visual: Because it's not the game including FIU, there's no video. Live stats, though.
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWBB
The Spiders reached the FIU Turkey Slam title game by beating winless Wichita State, 63-50. The game was tightly contested except for the second quarter, which Richmond won 17-4. Micaela Parson scored a career high 20 points to lead the Spiders, and two more players scored in double digits. While the sophomore guard was the leader on Friday, she's only second on the team across the whole season. Leading the way is junior guard Janell Hubbard, who is averaging 14.6 points per contest, just six-tenths of a point more than Parson.
Three Spiders are averaging more than five rebounds per game, with both Lauren Tolson and Salita Greene averaging 5.6/game. The impressive thing about that is that Tolson is also Richmond's primary sniper. She's shooting .452 from long range, and Tolson takes more than six threes per game. In fact, more than a quarter of their offense as a team is three point attempts.
The FIU Turkey Slam is the first trip away from Virginia for the Spiders, as they had four home games to open the season. They had a couple of squeakers against Old Dominion and William & Mary, a 10 point victory over UNC-Wilmington, and a comfortable 19 point win over Eastern Kentucky. Richmond had to rally from a nine point hole in the second quarter for the win over Old Dominion, and they actually led by as many as 31 at one point against EKU.