The Quick & The Dirty: Providence 103, #24 Marquette 98 (2 OT)

It’s hard to recap double overtime games.

What are the important points to make sure we discuss? Is it anything in regulation? The most important and high leverage moments are in overtime by definition, right? What about the first overtime? Does it matter at all once it goes to a second overtime?

It’s worse when you have to write about a loss, because you don’t even get to talk about all the cool and awesome things that happened to push your team to the win.

Your final, from the AMP: Providence 103, #24 Marquette 98, in double overtime.

The worst part about this is that we can easily say that Marquette should have won this game AND ALSO we can easily say that Marquette had no business winning this game.

That second part comes as Marquette looked less than engaged for most of the first half, at least on the defensive end. The offensive end was going pretty good, especially as MU went charging into the paint over and over and over for their first 20 points of the game. They weren’t getting stops though, and slowly but surely, the Friars built up an 11 point lead, 34-23, with 5:38 to go before halftime. That margin, combined with MU just not getting after kills with their usual zest, is a major reason why they lost the game.

And yet, it was 39-38 PC at the break, because Marquette closed the half out on a 15-5 run, and that turned into 18-5 overall after Olivier-Maxence Prosper opened up the second half with an and-1. That’s Marquette by two, 41-39. While the Golden Eagles never grabbed full control of the game for a while, it was clear that they were locked in and engaged. I’m not going to go so far as to say “whole different team/attitude” but you could see the energy on the court.

They eventually did grab control of the game, and with 7:21 to play, Kam Jones went to the rack for a bucket and a nine point lead, 75-66. This was MU’s high water mark of the game. Down 11 to up nine, 52-32 across the span of roughly 13 minutes. That’s the Marquette that beat Baylor.

The Marquette that lost to Purdue, specifically fell apart late against Purdue came back the rest of the way in regulation. An 10-0 run by the Friars pushed them from down to tied to up two with a minute left, 78-76, with Ed Croswell doing the heavy lifting at the end. David Joplin scored a tough bucket to knot it at 78, Providence got forced into a triple by Noted Bad Three-Point Shooter Jared Bynum, threw an offensive rebound out of bounds, and MU had a chance to win with four seconds left.... but Sean Jones hit the front of the rim.

Overtime!

Providence went on a 10-2 run to lead 88-80 with 2:18 to go. Looked over! Tyler Kolek said “NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND,” and single handedly pulled out some steals and layups and free throws to make it 88-78 with 64 seconds left. Drama! Bryce Hopkins made one of his 13 free throws to make it a two point game, and then a drive, a spin, a fadeaway from Kolek, TIED at 89!

Providence had a chance to win, but their last possession was horridly rushed and while their distance on the attempted winner was very short, the shot was very bad.

Five more minutes.

OMax Prosper fouled out on the first possession of the second overtime session. Bad!

Tyler Kolek, he of the career high 29 points on 11-for-15 shooting, fouled out with 3:18 to go. Also bad!

But David Joplin cashed a monster triple from the corner with 2:29 to go to give Marquette a 96-93 lead. Stops. Trade buckets at worst. There for the taking. Whatever else you want to say. Alyn Breed hit a wild three of his own on the ensuing possession to tie it. Oso Ighodaro scored with less than 96 seconds left to tie it again at 98.... and that was it for MU’s offense. MU’s defense also went away, committing fouls when they absolutely could not afford to do that, and we’re back where we started where MU didn’t do what was necessary in the early part of the game to avoid having these problems late in the game. Their last chance to keep the game alive came when Ed Croswell missed the back end of two freebies with PC up only three with 16 seconds left.... but the Friars came up with their 18th offensive rebound of the game. Providence came into the game as the #5 offensive rebounding team in the country according to KenPom.com, and they got to 46% of their misses in this one. When you let the team that’s elite at something do better than their average, much better than their average in fact, it’s probably not going to end well for you, and that was the case here.

The old saying is it’s hard to win games on the road in your league. That’s the case here as MU just came up short repeatedly in multiple facets, and now they’re 1-1 in Big East play. Lesson learned, or something, maybe. We’ll have to wait and see......

Up Next: ..... because due to Christmas, Marquette is off until next week Tuesday. The Golden Eagles will return to Fiserv Forum for that one, which will be a 7pm Central time start on FS1 against Seton Hall. The Pirates are 0-2 in Big East action after falling 73-70 to Xavier in Cincinnati on Tuesday night.