That’s More Than Enough Of That: #1 Marquette 72, #8 St. John’s 70 (OT)

Good news, Marquette men’s basketball fans, it is now impossible to see St. John’s again until December 2023 at the absolute earliest.

Marquette needed 45 minutes at Madison Square Garden to finally find their way past St. John’s in the first of four Big East tournament quarterfinal contests, but they finally figured out a way to do it and picked up the overtime victory, 72-70. Shaka Smart’s team advances to Friday’s tournament semifinals, marking their first appearance there since 2019.

There was A LOT of this game, and I don’t just mean that it went to overtime and we got more than a regulation sized basketball game. There was the 16-11 start for the Golden Eagles where it appeared that Olivier-Maxence Prosper was attempting to dunk St. John’s off the face of the earth. He got called for a technical foul on his second official dunk of the game, most likely for taunting as opposed to doing a chinup after his foot bopped a SJU defender, but the ensuing free throw from David Jones ended up being the first point of a 16-0 Red Storm run that left them with a 27-16 lead with 6:31 to play. Four Marquette turnovers helped propel the run, and it would be the Golden Eagles’ miscues that did a lot of the lifting to help the Johnnies run with them all game long. By the time the game was over, MU would turn the ball over 19 times and that was bad enough for their third worst turnover rate of the season.

A couple of late threes from Chase Ross and David Joplin let Marquette go into halftime down just 11, and those triples were a welcome breath of fresh air. MU shot just 4-for-19 from long range in the first half and ultimately just 27% for the whole game. The biggest source of problems? Kam Jones, who was 1-for-8 from distance in the first half with just one attempt inside the arc. Yes, Kam’s a great shooter, but he’s at his best when the defense doesn’t know what he’s going to do, drive for a scoop shot or let it fly. Settling for threes is always the wrong decision, and all the misses didn’t help.

MU came out of the gate strong in the second half, scoring the first nine points to slice the margin to just one and then tacked on another five points after some free throws from Joel Soriano to make it a 14-2 run. 15:18 to go, Marquette up 2, and it’s almost like they were never down 14 in the first half in the first place. SJU answered with a 9-0 run.... and Marquette answered with a 10-0 run. Golden Eagles by 3, 7:18 to go.

I don’t want to confuse you too much: Marquette was not playing great basketball here. They were, however, getting some great defense or at the very least very bad St. John’s offense. The Red Storm made just seven field goals in the final 25 minutes of this game. Dylan Addae-Wusu made four of them all by himself, and he tacked on two free throws to keep the Johnnies tilting back and forth with Marquette down the stretch in regulation.

An offensive foul on Chase Ross as he took off on rebound and was ready for takeoff on a dunk may have been a pivot point for this game. If Ross raising his arm to get Posh Alexander off of him doesn’t happen, he hammers a dunk for a six point lead. Instead, St. John’s scores the next five points of the game, and the Johnnies are up one with 2:55 to go.

It’s still St. John’s by one, 56-55 with almost 90 seconds to go when Oso Ighodaro commits maybe the worst backcourt violation that the world has ever seen by crossing halfcourt and then immediately throwing it to Tyler Kolek in the middle of the floor but also about 15 feet behind him. Felt very not good at the time.... but St. John’s couldn’t convert, and it was Ighodaro who got a putback with 61 seconds to go to put Marquette up.

Addae-Wusu missed a free throw on the other end, and Kam Jones, he of the very bad first half, drained a monster triple to put MU up four with 25 seconds left.... right before Stevie Mitchell fouled AJ Storr shooting a three. And then Ighodaro made a rushed pass long on the inbound because he was running out of time and options, and it was a turnover but then David Jones lost the ball in the lane and OMax got to shoot free throws, made one, MU up two, just make a stop.

THEY DIDN’T, letting Addae-Wusu get to the rim very easily, ta-da, overtime.

THANKFULLY, that layup was SJU’s final field goal of the game.

It was not, however, their final points of the game as they went 9-for-10 from the free throw line in overtime.

But Marquette has Tyler Kolek, the Big East Player of the Year, and St. John’s does not. Kolek scored seven of his game high 19 points in the extra session, all of them after the 2:30 mark, and his free throws with 15 seconds left, combined with two final missed field goals from the Johnnies, gave MU the win.

Sheeeeeeesh.

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

Up Next: We don’t know for certain, but it will definitely be the Big East semifinals and it will definitely be at 5:30pm Central time on Friday night. The opponent is officially still up in the air, but as I type this, UConn just went into halftime up 35-19 on Providence.