I’ll be honest: I didn’t watch much of Sunday night’s Marquette women’s basketball regular-season finale.
That’s the downside of the Golden Eagles’ game against Providence at 4:30 p.m. CT, 90 minutes into the men’s game against DePaul at Feather Forum. As a season ticket holder for both teams, obviously I was going to Fiserv when the women’s game started, and by the time I wound my way back to the car and back home, it was already the fourth quarter.
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I thought I’d get home just in time to watch the Golden Eagles make their final preparations for victory. After erasing Providence’s six-point lead in the final 70 seconds of the first quarter, Marquette hung with the Friars for much of the second quarter, and the Golden Eagles only led 38-37 at halftime. In the second half of the third quarter, the situation of the Marquette team tilted towards Marquette. They went on a 15-2 run in the last 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Neither team scored in the last 60 seconds. The visiting team led 59-45 by 14 points entering the final quarter.
I thought Marquette had it under control.
I walked into the room during the fourth quarter media timeout, and just after halftime, Providence’s Peyton Dunbar cut the deficit to 10 points. As it turned out, Marquette had made its last shot with 5:51 left in the game, but they just had to play smart and steady.
They are not.
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Providence went on an 11-1 run after Lee Volker’s layup to cut the lead to four points with 2:27 left. Four Marquette turnovers impacted the Golden Eagles in that game, and after that, it was time to let the missed free throws impact them. In the final 3 minutes and 30 seconds of the game, Marquette missed seven free throws. The Friars fouled to try to extend the game, and the one thing you can’t do in a situation like this is miss your freebie.
Fortunately, squats are not available in Providence. As I mentioned, the lead shrank to just four points, but didn’t grow any further. The Friars went 2-for-9 from the field after that, and despite two more turnovers by the Golden Eagles and all the missed freebies, PC couldn’t get any closer, ultimately winning 69-65.
Skylar Forbes led Marquette with 24 points in this one, she also added five rebounds and three assists, and you know what, honestly, we could have let the free throw shooting down at the end. Lee Walker scored a double-double with 15 points and 12 rebounds, and also contributed 2 assists and 4 steals. Kennedy Perkins leads the assists list with four assists.
The win earned Marquette the No. 4 seed in the Big East Tournament. Officially, they were tied with Seton Hall for third place at 12-8, but the Pirates won the season series decider 2-0.
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Next: This is the regular season finale, followed by the Big East Tournament quarterfinals. As the fourth seed, Marquette already knew they would face the fifth seed in the quarterfinals rather than wait for Day 1 to find out from the winner. The No. 5 seed is Creighton, and the Blue Jays are 11-9 in league play after a 73-71 win over Xavier on Sunday and are in a tie with St. John’s. Peacock’s game is scheduled for Saturday, March 7 at 1:30 pm CT. Marquette and Creighton each have home wins in this season’s series, but the Omaha game came when Mississippi State couldn’t finish the game strong, and the Jayhawks got the win late.
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