The Quick & The Dirty: Marquette 90, Georgetown 86 (OT)

If you like rollercoasters and Marquette Golden Eagles basketball, then you were in luck on Monday night.

Marquette jumped out to a 10 point lead in the first 10 minutes, trailed by 12 just eight minutes later, tied the game four minutes later, fell behind by six five minutes later, took a five point lead with under eight minutes to play, fell behind again, retook the lead with four seconds left, AND THEN got forced to overtime by a buzzer beater layup.

THIS ALL HAPPENED.

Overtime was a hoot as well, as Georgetown struck out to a four point lead in the first 90 seconds, but big time three-pointers from Markus Howard and Andrew Rowsey pushed Marquette back out in front. A dagger of a pull-up from Rowsey finally put Marquette up for good with 34 seconds remaining before the Golden Eagles finally claimed victory, 90-86, in our nation’s capital.

Ugh, somehow I’m winded just writing all of that.

Marquette is now 8-9 on the season in Big East play, with only the regular season finale at home against Creighton left on the schedule. With the win on Monday night, the Golden Eagles kept alive whatever fleeting NCAA tournament at-large hopes they still have left. It’s going to take some bonus points in the Big East tournament to be sure, but there’s still a chance.

This game, as you can guess, was very stupid. Prime amongst the stupidity was the play of sophomore star Sam Hauser. Don’t get me wrong here: He was great. Hauser finished tied with Rowsey for a game high 28 points, and he chipped in six rebounds and an assist, too. Hauser also scored what appeared to be the game winning bucket on a super stepback baseline jumper before Jonathan Mulmore went the length of the court for the way-too-easy layup as time expired. Hauser was super. The stupidity lies in how Marquette ended up using Hauser. Remember when I said that Marquette was up 10 in the first 10 minutes? That was mostly Sam. At the 12:07 mark of the first half, Hauser was 5-of-6 from the floor and had scored 13 of Marquette’s points as they led 22-15.

Hauser would not attempt another field goal until 10 minutes had wound off the game clock. Again: 6 shots in 8 minutes, 13 points, zipola for the next 10, just 1 shot before halftime. While Hauser was being locked out of the offense, Marquette’s 10 point lead disappeared, only to be replaced by a 12 point Georgetown lead. This happened. The lead shifted by 22 points in a span of less than nine minutes, all while Hauser was quiet. I suspect that these things are connected.

Hauser hit a three in the first two minutes of the second half, part of his (and I am not making this up, he really did this, I’m making this extra long so you get the point about how poorly Sam was used in this game) 7-of-8 long range shooting performance on the night, and then he didn’t shoot again until another six minutes went by. How many times can you remember watching a guy shoot 10-of-14 and score 28 points and then say “well, he certainly could have done a lot more?” THAT WAS THIS GAME.

Adding to the dumb: Markus Howard and Andrew Rowsey starting together. Rowsey played 43 of the game’s 45 minutes, so we can go ahead and presume that a wide majority of Howard’s 36 minutes were paired up with Rowsey. NEAT. Can’t imagine why Georgetown scored 1.20 points per possession, according to StatBroadcast.

More Dumb: Turns out Harry Froling’s alive. After being held out of the last two games for lord knows what reason, especially while DePaul was busy chewing MU alive on the glass, Froling appeared out of nowhere in the second half here. He promptly hit two three-pointers, literally doubling his total for the year. Think about it: Harry Froling, who is now shooting 21% on long range bombs, scored six points on a pair of three-balls in a game that Marquette won by four.

I feel like I’ve undersold the Mulmore buzzer-beater in this recap. Sam Hauser hit a masterful shot and somehow literally every Golden Eagle on the floor forgot that there was 3.7 seconds left. Here’s both shots in one video clip. I don’t know if it’s possible to play 3.7 seconds of worse defense.

And yet, after having that win ripped away from them with that shot, Marquette still won the game. Good for them. Never should have been that close, though.

I think Casual Hoya said it best late in the game:

To that I say: Which team in this game are you talking about?

Up Next: One final tilt at the Bradley Center before it’s retired forever. Creighton comes to town on Saturday for Senior Day for Andrew Rowsey. Tipoff on Fox is scheduled for 1:30pm Central.