RV Marquette Slices Through Saint Peter’s

Okay, let’s hit the important facts: On Sunday, Marquette women’s basketball moved to 4-0 on the year thanks to a 96-36 win against Saint Peter’s.

Yes, that score is correct. Marquette won by 60 points.

After the two teams traded buckets on their respective opening possessions, the Golden Eagles went on a 27-5 run for the rest of the first quarter, and that was pretty much that.

There’s not really much of a point in recapping the beat by beat of what happened here, As such, I want to introduce you guys to the James Equation. Back in the day, Bill James, he of baseball analytics fame, figured out a calculation to determine whether or not a college basketball game is officially out of reach.

The actual James Equation is a little complicated:

• Take the number of points one team is ahead.
• Subtract three.
• Add a half-point if the team that is ahead has the ball, and subtract a half-point if the other team has the ball. (Numbers less than zero become zero.)
• Square that.
• If the result is greater than the number of seconds left in the game, the lead is safe.

For the sake of simplicity and doing math in my head, I tend to skip over the adding or subtracting half a point, because doing squares of numbers with a .5 on them is complicated. This allows me to think about whether any game with a margin of 15 points or less is safe, because I know the squares up to 12 (15-3, natch) off the top of my head.

I bring all of this up to figure out when Marquette’s lead was officially safe.

The lead first hit 20 points with 36 seconds left in the first quarter on a jumper by Frannie Hottinger. A 20 point lead is only safe with 4:49 to play.

Jordan King provided the first 30 point lead of the game, scoring with 4:47 left in the second half to put MU up 40-9. A 30 point lead is only safe with 12:09 to play, late in the third quarter.

Kenzie Hare’s three at the horn to end the first half combined with the foul she drew and the ensuing freebie put Marquette up 56-16 at the break. A 40 point lead is safe with 22:49 to play, and that was with 2:49 to go in the second half, and that was already gone past.

Hare’s triple actually put Marquette up 39, and that lead would have been safe with 25 seconds left in the half. Thus, it was Hare’s three right at the end of the first half that locked up the game for the Golden Eagles.

That’s quite fitting, as Hare went 5-for-7 from downtown in the game on her way to 19 points along with a rebound and two assists. Jordan King led all scorers with 21 points, and she tied with Hottinger and Rose Nkumu for the team high in assists with five. Hottinger had a great overall game, her first in a Marquette uniform, tallying up 16 points, 12 rebounds, and five steals to go with her helpers. All that was missing from the Mythical 5 by 5 was five blocks, and Hottinger unfortunately did come up empty in that department on this day.

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

Up Next: Marquette is off to Florida for Thanksgiving. They will take on Boston College in the semifinals of the Fort Myers Tip Off at 3:30pm Central time on Friday. On Saturday, they will get either Wisconsin or Arkansas, depending on who wins and loses on Friday. Boston College is coming off a 71-56 victory over fellow Big East squad Providence on Sunday.