Allazia Blockton Breaks The Marquette Women’s Basketball Scoring Record As #18 Golden Eagles Roll Past Northwestern

After a 17 point performance against Mississippi State on Thursday night, Marquette’s Allazia Blockton entered Sunday afternoon’s game against Northwestern needing just 16 points to become the program’s all-time leading scorer. Krystal Ellis finished her career in 2009 with 1,940 points, scooting past Abbie Willenborg’s 1,818 by a fairly easy margin.

With 4:24 left in the fourth quarter, Natisha Hiedeman blocked a shot, came up with the ball, and hit Blockton on the break. The senior from Milwaukee finished up the transition bucket to give her 17 points on the day and break her tie with Ellis to become Marquette’s all-time leading scorer. She would tack on four more points by the time the final horn sounded to move to 1,946 career points. Blockton is now just 40 points away from breaking Jerel McNeal’s record for most points by any Marquette basketball player, and just 54 points from becoming the first ever Marquette basketball player to ever score 2,000 points.

There’s 21 regular season games left. I think she might pull it off, guys.

Oh, hey, yeah, and #18 Marquette beat Northwestern, 76-57, to move to 7-2 on the year and picked up what should be a quality victory come March.

Fun!

Actually, it wasn’t all fun, even though it started out that way. After some back and forth action to start, the Golden Eagles ripped off a 14-0 run to end the first quarter and take a 25-9 lead after just 10 minutes. Then the second quarter started and it was Northwestern’s turn to run wild. A 9-0 run in the middle of the period helped the Wildcats tilt the table and win the second quarter, 19-7, as the game sat at 32-28 favoring the Golden Eagles at intermission.

Like I said, not all fun, and it got less fun when Northwestern tied the game up at 34 early in the third quarter. Marquette answered with a 10-0 run led off by triples from Amani Wilborn and Blockton, and the lead would grow as high as 15 before a three-pointer from Abi Scheid with 32 seconds left in the period had the margin at just 10, 57-47, heading to the final 10 minutes. For the front half of the fourth quarter, Northwestern was able to hang around with Marquette, but they never really punched into the lead. That gave Marquette the opening that they needed.

Blockton’s record tying bucket put the Golden Eagles up 12, and 59 seconds later, her record breaking bucket pushed the lead to 14. After that, Northwestern managed just five free throws the rest of the way as Marquette pulled away and won with ease.

Blockton’s 21 led all scorers in the game, with Hiedeman adding 17 and Wilborn getting 10. It was a big day on the glass for Hiedeman, as she added a monster 15 rebounds, including five on the offensive end. It was her third career double-double, and she tossed around six assists, too.

As expected, Marquette couldn’t really do anything to stop Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpan. She had 14 points, six of which came from the free throw line, and grabbed up 15 rebounds of her own, including eight on the offensive end. While it was a great day for Kunaiyi-Akpan and her top 15 in the country individual rebounding rates, her team did not do very well on the glass. Marquette got to 47.4% of their missed shots on the afternoon, something that should be much more difficult against what HerHoopStats.com marks as the #34 defensive rebounding rate team in the country coming into this one. The Golden Eagles have been at a disadvantage in terms of size over the past few games, but they’re finding ways to grab those missed shots, and that’s really helping them out, especially on a day where MU shoots just 21% from long range.

Up Next: Finals week means some relative time off for Marquette, as they won’t return to action until Saturday. The weekend brings Green Bay to town in what should be a spirited contest. The Phoenix are the Horizon League favorite for the 11th straight season and are aiming at their 21st straight HL title. They’re just 4-4 on the season, including losses to Big East rival DePaul as well as the same Wildcats squad that Marquette just knocked off and a 77-47 squashing on the road against the South Dakota State team that MU wrecked in the season opener.