Marquette Handles West Virginia

Well, things looked bad for Marquette men’s basketball on Friday night, I’m not going to lie to you. West Virginia went on a 17-2 run in the first half to go up 25-14, and they held that advantage for the rest of the first period of the game.

47-35 at the break, and I’m not going to cast any shade on any Marquette fan that looked at that and said “ah well, they were going to lose a game eventually, West Virginia’s good, Bob Huggins knows Shaka Smart’s tricks from those years in the Big 12 together, whatcha gonna do about it?”

Turns out, the Golden Eagles decided to just stop missing shots to do something about it.

Marquette shot 16-for-25 overall in the second half, including an absolutely bonkers 8-for-13 from behind the arc. A 13-0 run by Marquette tipped the whole venture from 54-42 with 16 minutes left to 55-54 with 13 and a half to play. That run was the tipping point for the entire game as West Virginia never really recovered. It took most of the rest of the half, but Marquette used that white hot shooting to just push a little further and a little further away from the Mountaineers for the final 13 minutes. By the end, Marquette held a solid margin in the final minutes of the game, the MU fans in the building started singing Country Roads to rub it in a little bit/remind WVU fans of that time Buzz Williams danced on their logo, and Tyler Kolek was enjoying himself so much, he actually joined in the singing.

Kolek was very much entitled to get into the spirit of things. The transfer from George Mason finished with a team high 18 points on 7-for-12 shooting and 4-8 behind the arc. He also grabbed six rebounds and handed out eight assists while playing all but one minute of the game. Kolek had two of MU’s eight threes in the second half and six of his helpers came after the break as MU came roaring back to beat the Mountaineers in the two teams’ first meeting since late in the 2012 season.

Hey, what happened at the end of that game after Jae Crowder stole Kevin Jones’ soul? Well, I guess I went ahead and walked myself right up to it, didn’t I?

Weird how opportunities to put that video in keep popping up like that.

That’s the recap, y’all. Marquette was down, then they weren’t because they hit a lot of shots, and then they won. If y’all have deeper insight, please sound off in the comments because I was half watching this game while watching Marquette volleyball play Georgetown at the McGuire Center.

UP NEXT! Title game time! Marquette gets a second shot at a ranked team this week, as they will face off against #22 St. Bonaventure on Sunday in the Charleston Classic title game. The Bonnies went on a 21-2 tear in the second half to rally to beat Clemson, 68-65, in the early doubleheader in South Carolina to advance to the championship.