RV Marquette Runs Away From Loyola Chicago

Senior guard Jordan King put up 17 of her new career high 30 points in the second half as Marquette women’s basketball turned a three point halftime margin into a 24 point final, 77-53, against Loyola Chicago on Saturday afternoon. With the win, the Golden Eagles are now 8-2 on the year.

It looked like Marquette was going to run away with this one from the get go. King, Rose Nkumu, and Nia Clark teamed up to score the first nine points of the game to put MU up 9-0, and man if they didn’t look like they were firing on all cylinders right away. But that start prompted a timeout from LUC head coach Allison Guth, and her words of wisdom and adjustments in that quick break made a big impact on the game. The visitors would cut MU’s lead to just one point before Emily La Chapell added a bucket in the closing seconds to make it 17-14 Marquette after 10 minutes.

King drained two triples in the first four minutes of the second to put Marquette back up nine, but they couldn’t grow the margin. It was stuck bumping up against that single digit limit for the rest of the half, and a pair of three-pointers from Kira Chivers and Maya Chandler in the final 90 seconds nearly made the lead go away completely. After 20 minutes, MU led by just three, 31-28. Chandler was the big reason why, going 7-for-11 in the opening half for 16 of her team’s 28 points while everyone else shot 5-for-16.

When you need a big statement coming out of the locker room, you look to your big time players. King scored six straight out of the intermission, including jamming up Chandler for a steal and a bucket in transition, and transition buckets from Clark and Chloe Marotta made it 10 straight to open the third. 41-28 in less than three minutes, and Marquette was now firmly in control. The lead would never slip back to single digits the rest of the way. Liza Karlen made it a 16 point game, matching MU’s biggest lead of the contest, at the end of the third quarter, and 14 would be the closest that the Ramblers got in the fourth. That came with 8:20 to go when Chandler scored in the paint to make it 57-43. Marquette doubled them up the rest of the way, 20-10, and that was that.

While King was running wild for the Golden Eagles, Marquette was locking up Chandler on the other end. She had just four points after intermission, and shot just 1-for-6. That’s a big reason why Marquette won big at the final horn, as it wasn’t just the 46 second half points on the offensive end.

King’s 30 was a new career high, and she was ruthlessly efficient, shooting 13-for-17 and 3-for-4 from long range to get there. She wasn’t just scoring, which is the big deal, as she had six rebounds, three assists, a block, and three steals, too. Liza Karlen was quietly great, putting up a double-double on 12 points and a game high 12 rebounds, including four on the offensive end, and she dished four assists, blocked two shots, and came up with a steal as well. Freshman Emily La Chapell had a new career best in scoring with 12 points as well, as perhaps Loyola just had a problem guarding blond guards with numbers in the 20s. Rose Nkumu was great as King’s backcourt partner, distributing a game high seven assists.

How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and MUTV?

Up Next: Marquette will take the week off for finals before reconvening for their next game. They’ll still be at home, as this was the first of four straight at the McGuire Center. Up next is MU’s third game of Big East play, as Butler will be in town on Sunday, December 18th. The Bulldogs are 5-4 on the year, but 0-2 in Big East action so far. They will host Illinois at Hinkle Fieldhouse on Sunday before taking a week off themselves.