Luke Fischer Chases His Tournament Dream
By SEAN BRENNAN
Special to BIGEAST.com
It was back in October when Marquette was at Madison Square Garden for BIG EAST Media Day when Golden Eagles senior center Luke Fischer said he had one dream he needed to fulfill before graduating – reaching the NCAA Tournament for the first time with his last shot.
When Fischer arrived at Marquette halfway through his freshman season, after spending a semester at Indiana, the 6-11, 250-pound center was no stranger to success on the basketball court.
During his highly-successful career at Germantown High School in his native Wisconsin, all Fischer did was lead Germantown to back-to-back state titles, post a combined 56-0 record in his final two seasons, be named the top player in Wisconsin by ESPN.com, earn Parade Magazine All-America honors and tabbed as a Gatorade Player of the Year.
But success has been hard to come by during his career at Marquette. In his first two seasons in Milwaukee, the Golden Eagles were a combined 30-34 with a 13-23 mark in the BIG EAST. Last year saw much improvement and Fischer hoped a 20-13 record with wins over NCAA Tournament teams Wisconsin, Providence and Butler would be enough to knock Marquette off the bubble and into the Big Dance for the first time Fischer’s career.
But a loss to Xavier in the BIG EAST Tournament quarterfinals proved to be the end of Marquette’s season when the Eagles didn’t even get an invite to the NIT Tournament, let alone the NCAA.
But this season the postseason picture looked decidedly rosier for Fischer and Marquette just two weeks ago when the Golden Eagles took down both then-No. 7 Creighton and No. 1 Villanova in a span of just three days. With students storming the court at the Bradley Center following the win over the Wildcats, it certainly looked like the good times were finally returning to Marquette.
“We were on Cloud 9. It was a great feeling,” Fischer said. “Two top 10 wins in the same week is an amazing feeling. Any team would be excited about that.”
But just as Marquette was about to be anointed a surefire NCAA Tournament pick, back-to-back losses to Providence (79-78 at home) and St. John’s (86-72 at MSG) quickly put a damper on the party. So what happened to those suddenly high-flying Eagles?
“I don’t think we had fully moved on from those big wins yet,” Fischer said. “We had a heck of a weekend then but we had to move on from those wins and apparently we didn’t.”
Marquette righted the ship a bit this past Saturday when the Eagles’ elite offense was on full display. They knocked down a season-best 14 three-pointers in a 92-79 victory over DePaul in a game that also saw Fischer come close to posting a triple-double with 13 points, eight rebounds and a career-high seven blocks. It was also the 15th game this season in which Marquette drained at least 10 three-pointers.
“We definitely know we can do big things offensively. It’s always good when our offense is on,” Fischer said of Marquette’s offense, one which ranks second in the BIG EAST at 83.7 points a game (17th in the nation) and is tops in the conference in three-point field goal percentage at 42.6 percent. “But we have to learn when our offense isn’t going or clicking that we have to bear down on defense and that has been our struggling point throughout the whole year. We really have to improve on that.”
There are ample opportunities for Marquette to build an NCAA Tournament quality resume before the season ends. With those victories over Villanova and Creighton already in their back pocket, the Golden Eagles still have games remaining against Xavier (twice), Creighton and Butler, the latter coming Tuesday night when Marquette hosts the Bulldogs. Of those four pivotal games, three will be played at home. So it’s all in front of Fischer and Marquette to bolster their argument for a tournament invitation this season.
“On the nights that we haven’t shown up, I think that’s been all our fault,” Fischer said. “We were up 16 at Butler and lost (88-80 on Jan. 16). We haven’t played Xavier yet and they are a heck of a team and we’ve already beaten Creighton. So I think we can compete with anyone in this league.”
Marquette will go into Tuesday night’s game against Butler toting a 15-8 overall record and a 6-5 mark in the BIG EAST. The Golden Eagles are currently alone in fifth place, just a game behind both Butler and Creighton and a game and a half behind second-place Xavier. Four of Marquette’s last seven regular-season games will be at home (vs. Butler, Xavier, St. John’s and Creighton) while the three road games will take the Golden Eagles to Georgetown, Providence and Xavier.
So what does Fischer make of Marquette’s chances of landing that elusive NCAA Tournament invite?
“I still think we’re in a good position in the standings and if we can make a good push here in the second half of the (conference) season I think we’ll be in a good spot,” Fischer said. “We absolutely have a good chance. We’ve shown that we can play with anyone.”
Time is growing short for Fischer with just four weeks remaining in the regular season. And he is well aware that the Golden Eagles can ill afford to stumble down the stretch as virtually every game from here on can be placed in the “must-win” category if Fischer hopes to make his NCAA Tournament dream come true.
“We know that we only have a couple of more weeks left, only a small amount of guaranteed games,” Fischer said. “So we have to make the most of everyone of them. If we don’t we’re really going to regret it at the end of the year.”