The Marquette Golden Eagles demolished Bethune-Cookman by a final score of 92-59 on Saturday afternoon. Gotta love a 33 point victory, especially when DePaul only beat the Wildcats by 22 on Wednesday.
Marquette pulled away after a slow start and never looked back. Hey, remember when Markus Howard struggled in the shooting department against UMBC in the opener? He was a man on a mission this afternoon pouring in 37 points on an extremely efficient 10-16 from the field and hit 7 of 10 from behind the arc. Yup! Back to his usual self today. He picked up 8 rebounds to LEAD THE TEAM and dished out 5 assists. Let me remind you that Howard is listed at 5’11” so that rebounding total is quite the feat.
Fun Fact: Howard’s 37 points today are the highest a Marquette player has scored in a home game since Steve Novak dropped 41 against UConn in January of 2006. Thank the Marquette Men’s Basketball twitter account for that tid-bit.
We knew Howard wasn’t going to be held quiet for long. The Hauser bros also stood out each scoring in double figures. It seems like they’ve gotten into a groove playing alongside each other on the court. Who woulda thought? Sam has back-to-back double-digit scoring outputs after scoring 15 in the season opener and 10 in this one. Joey had a pleasing stat line of 11/7/6.
As a team, Marquette shot 51% from the field and one-upped that from behind the arc making 52% of their threes. They held the Wildcats to just 29% from the field and limited them to a mere 3 three-pointers. Very nice, gents. This is the second straight game where the Golden Eagles have held opponents to under 30% from the field.
I know Marquette has played against much lesser opponents in their first two games of the season, but it seems like they’ve got this defense thing figured out. It’s just much easier when you have so much size and length on the court at the same time. The starting lineup consisted of Markus Howard, Sacar Anim, Brendan Bailey, Sam Hauser, and Theo John. All of them with the exception of Howard are 6’5” or taller. Joey Hauser, Jamal Cain, and Ed Morrow also saw significant action playing about half the game and are all at least 6’7”. Both UMBC and Bethune-Cookman had difficulty driving on this Golden Eagle defense.
First time out against UMBC was all about the defensive effort holding the Retrievers to 42 points. Today Marquette put it all together with Howard’s explosiveness and collective team defense. Just what we needed the first weekend of college basketball. Please join me in enjoying Markus Howard highlights from today courtesy of Fox Sports:
So this guy, @markushoward11...
— MarquetteMBB (@MarquetteMBB) November 10, 2018
37 points, 27 minutes. #mubb @FS1 pic.twitter.com/tDfWvMl9sB
Up Next: Marquette plays their first road game of the season on Wednesday night when they visit Assembly Hall to tangle with Indiana. Tip-off for that Gavitt Tip-Off Game is set for 7:30pm on FS1.