Marquette Women’s Basketball Wrecked Providence’s Whole Deal

Just when you think you have the answers, Marquette women’s basketball changes the questions.

On Friday night at the McGuire Center, Providence had an 18-17 lead on Marquette with 6:37 left in the second quarter. The Friars had made a big run at the end of the first quarter, and the Golden Eagles were struggling to get anything to fall through the rim.

Claire Kaifes got a bucket to drop with 6:19 left before halftime, and, well, that’s where everything changed.

With 8:52 left in the third quarter, Selena Lott buried her only three-point make of the game to put Marquette up 42-23. That’s a 25-5 run by the Golden Eagles across seven and a half minutes bridging halftime. It was absolute death to Providence, as the Friars never recovered from that bludgeoning and Marquette ended up with the 85-55 victory.

The closest Providence would get the rest of the game was 14 points, and when the fourth quarter started, 1) Marquette had doubled their halftime lead, punching it from 12 points to 24, and 2) that 24 point margin is the closest things would get the rest of the way.

With the final score being as lopsided as it was, the biggest takeaway from the game is that head coach Megan Duffy went deep into her bench. Camryn Taylor had the most minutes played in this one, coming off the bench to rack up 30. Part of this is because she’s a rotation piece for the Golden Eagles, and part of this is because Duffy had the five freshmen who don’t start (shouts to Jordan King) out on the floor for the final five minutes of the game. None of the starters played more than the 28 minutes logged by Lott, and every single Golden Eagles player got at least one point on the board.

While Marquette shot the ball well and did a number on the Friars’ shooting abilities, the big story for the Golden Eagles was rebounding. Taylor Valladay was the only player not to record at least one rebound, and four Golden Eagles had at least four rebounds. MU was solid on their own misses, but they were ending Providence possessions with authority on the other end. The Friars recorded only four offensive rebounds in the entire game, accounting for just 14% of their misses. If we’re being honest about things, part of that isn’t anything Marquette did on purpose. PC head coach Jim Crowley has a near-double-double machine on his roster in Mary Baskerville, and I’d like to say that the Golden Eagles held her to just 11 points and two rebounds. I can’t fully say that, though, because Baskerville played just 18 minutes in this game, 15 of which came before the fourth quarter started. She finished with only three fouls, so I have no idea what Crowley was trying to accomplish with what appears to be his star player only playing half the game while it was still up for grabs.

MU was led by 18 points from Selena Lott, while Camryn Taylor (15) and Lauren Van Kleunen (12) had big contributions, too. As usual, there were lots of great lines to go around here. Lott had 18/8/5 with two blocks and a steal, LVK had 12/8/4 with a block and a steal, King added 9/2/6, Taylor had 15/4/1 and two steals, and Isabelle Spingola celebrated tying McKayla Yentz for the seventh most threes in program history by tossing together a 6/3/4 night.

How about some highlights, of which there are many, courtesy of GoMarquette.com?

Up Next: Well, it was always going to be interesting, but things got ratcheted up in intensity last night. Creighton comes to the McGuire Center on Sunday afternoon, and since MU lost in Omaha, 72-62, earlier this season when the Jays exploded from behind the arc in the second half, this was always going to be a “circle the date for revenge” game. However, Creighton will be coming off of a 63-61 victory over #11 DePaul on Friday night. The Jays trailed by 20 at halftime and got a game sealing block from Carly Bachelor to hold on to win. You know they’ll be fired up to make that win mean something by getting their next one as well.