Marquette Women's Basketball Blasts UWM

An 18-0 run bridging the break between the first and second quarters gave Marquette a lead on Tuesday night against UW-Milwaukee that they would not relinquish.  The run started with the score tied at eight, and when it was done, Marquette led 26-8 and would never lead by fewer than 11 for the rest of the game on their way to a 101-81 victory.  It's the first time that Marquette has cracked the 100 point barrier since March of 1995.

Three Golden Eagles set new personal bests in the scoring department, led by 30 points from Natisha Hiedeman.  The Green Bay native went 5 for 6 in the first half, including 3-4 on three pointers, and then followed that up with a 6-8 shooting mark in the second half, including yet another 3-4 performance from long range.  Allazia Blockton attempted to make a case for a fourth straight Freshman of the Week award by putting up a career best 25 points and adding seven rebounds, three assists, and a steal.  McKayla Yentz also posted her career best, scoring 17 points, and she ripped down seven rebounds of her own.

Marquette shot lights out in this game, going 9-18 from long range and 31-49 inside the arc.  They also kept careful track of the ball, turning it over on just 12% of possessions.  Their rebounding left a bit to be desired, though.  UWM got to 48% of their misses in this game, which largely accounts for their offensive efficiency in this game.  Even though they had an eFG% below 50% and turned it over on more than 21% of their possessions, UWM's offensive rebounding allowed them to make this game look closer than it actually was.

That offensive rebounding by the Panthers allowed them to score 1.07 points per possession in this game.  Thankfully due to Marquette's outstanding three point shooting (and really, that's only Hiedeman and Yentz, who went 9-14 from long range, while everyone else combined to go 0-4), the Golden Eagles scored 1.32 points per possession, and it's really hard to lose a basketball game when you're scoring with that kind of efficiency.

One final note on this game: Right about at the midway point of the third quarter, Erika Davenport went down in a heap underneath the Marquette basket.  After the referees blew a stop to the proceedings to allow the training staff to take a look at her, Davenport was escorted off the court by MU's trainers, but she didn't put any weight on her right leg once she got up.  There's no word in the Marquette press release recapping the game, nor was there any mention of Davenport in head coach Carolyn Kieger's postgame discussions as posted on the official WBB Twitter.

Marquette finishes their non-conference schedule with a record of 5-6  Considering they started the season 0-4 and the two losses since then are to ranked opponents, that's pretty good.

Up Next: The good news is that if it's not a serious injury for Davenport, she might not miss any time.  Marquette won't play again until next week Tuesday night.  The bad news is that if Davenport does have to miss that game or any more games after that, Marquette's going to miss her, too.  That game next Tuesday is MU's Big East opener, and they break the ice on the league schedule by traveling to Chicago to take on perennial Big East contender DePaul.  The Blue Demons are 8-5 this season, and they're coming off an upset loss to Loyola-Chicago in their most recent contest.