2017 Big East Women's Basketball Tournament: Marquette 80, Georgetown 66

Powered by five double-digit scoring performances, #3 seeded Marquette defeated #6 seeded Georgetown, 80-64, in the Big East tournament quarterfinal round on Sunday afternoon.  The Golden Eagles advance to the semifinals on Monday afternoon, where they'll square off with #2 seeded Creighton.

The scoring was spread across all of the regulars pretty evenly, but the two best performances of the day belong to Danielle King and Amani Wilborn.  King posted a career high 11 assists along with 14 points for her second double-double of the season, while Wilborn put up 12s in both the points and rebounds column, marking a new career high in boards for the sophomore from Milwaukee.

As was the case in the first two meetings between the two teams this season, Marquette got a lead on the Hoyas and maintained it for the majority of regulation.  The two squads were tied after the first 10 minutes of the game, and Faith Woodard gave the game its sixth tie at the 8:48 mark of the second quarter.  From there, though, Marquette doubled up Georgetown, 22-11, over the remainder of the half, but that 11 point lead that the Golden Eagles built at halftime was going to be their biggest margin for most of the third quarter.  It was a three from McKayla Yentz in the closing seconds that gave her team a 12 point advantage heading to the fourth quarter.

A layup from Woodard at the 3:14 mark brought the lead back down to just eight one more time, but MU got the next five points, including a triple from King to tie the program record for three-pointers in a season by the entire team, and things were pretty safe from there.

Allazia Blockton led all scorers with 20 points, and she also chipped in six rebounds, two assists, and two steals.  Erika Davenport had a "quiet" game with 12 points and seven rebounds, while Natisha Hiedeman had 16 points on 5-of-10 shooting, including 3-of-8 from downtown.  Hiedeman did have a scary moment early in the game when she scored taking it to the rack, but fell awkwardly and immediately grabbed her ankle in what appeared to be an immense amount of pain.  She immediately subbed out for Wilborn, but Hiedeman was able to quickly hobble her way off the court and back to the locker room.  She was back in the game after missing less than three minutes of game action, but all game long, it was clear that the ankle was bothering Hiedeman badly.  We'll see if she's available for action for the rest of the tournament.

How about some highlights, courtesy of FS2 and GoMarquette.com?

Up Next: It's a quick turnaround for the Golden Eagles, who will play Creighton at 3pm Central on Monday afternoon.  The Bluejays advanced after rallying from a halftime deficit to beat Butler, 64-55.  Marquette faculty and staff can get into the game FOR FREE to help stack the deck in favor of MU.