The Markus Howard Show, Part Two: #20 Marquette 103, #14 Buffalo 85

Let’s just come right out and say it.

I sat in Fiserv Forum on Friday night and watched Markus Howard throw together 40 (FORTY, FOUR-ZERO) points in the second half against the #14 ranked team in the country.

I mean, what the hell?

Before Howard went wild for 52 in overtime last year in Providence, Marquette’s single game record was 44 points. Tony Smith put that up in 1990, tying Mike Moran’s record from 1958. Against Kansas State earlier this month, Howard hit 45 in regulation to officially break the record, as he only had 42 when overtime started against the Friars.

Howard damn near had 44 in the final 20 minutes of the game alone.

What do you even do with that?

From the 7:11 mark of the second half to the 1:44 mark, Howard personally outscored Buffalo 24-14. He scored every single Marquette point for five and a half minutes AND turned a 10 point lead into a 20 point blowout.

This is a thing that actually happened, and the absolutely crazy thing about it is that HOWARD LOOKED ABSOLUTELY WRETCHED AT HALFTIME.

Five points, five turnovers, two fouls, all in just 11 minutes because of the fouls.

And then, KABLAMMO, Johnny Storm time. NBA Jam come to life. 11-of-18 from the field, 8-of-10 from beyond the arc, a perfect 10-for-10 from the stripe, a rebound, and four assists. Played all but the very final minute of the game.

What can you say?

Couple more things: This game was tight at halftime, and Joey Hauser banging together a personal 9-0 run with under seven minutes left in the opening frame was a big reason why MU had a one point lead. Hauser The Younger drilled three straight long range bombs and flipped a four point Buffalo lead into a five point MU advantage.

You know who was super great in this game? Theo F. John. Did you realize that we actually needed to activate the Triple Double Watch for him? Six points, nine rebounds, seven blocks. A lot of those blocks were of the “I DON’T FLIPPING THINK SO” variety, and I’m going to go ahead and attribute a lot of that to the (well deserved) technical foul that he picked up in the first half for howling into a UB player’s face after a monster jam.

Okay, let’s go to the highlights, courtesy of FS1 and GoMarquette.com. WARNING: Markus Howard gets so hot, you may catch a sunburn. Or your monitor might melt.

Up Next: Marquette’s going to take a week off for Christmas before they play one more non-conference game on December 28th. Southern will be bringing their 0-11 record against Division 1 teams to town in that one.