Box Score | Marquette Quotes | UConn Quotes | Notes
By SEAN BRENNAN
BIGEAST.com
If you could think of a better way to tip off Friday night’s BIG EAST Tournament semifinal doubleheader, we’re all ears. Really, it couldn’t have been staged any better. An absolute heavyweight bout between two BIG EAST behemoths.
In the one corner you have Marquette, the regular-season champion, a team in the midst of the most magical of seasons. The top-seeded Golden Eagles came into the game riding a season-best, seven-game winning streak after knocking off St. John’s in the quarterfinals. Marquette was seeking its first conference tournament title since joining the BIG EAST back in 2005-06 and came into the bout toting not only an all-BIG EAST Second Team duo of Kam Jones and Oso Ighodaro, but also the Coach of the Year in Shaka Smart and Player of the Year in Tyler Kolek.
In the other corner, the challenger, the fourth-seeded UConn Huskies. The Huskies arrived at the Garden owners of a six-game winning streak and brought along their own star-studded roster. There was Adama Sanogo and Jordan Hawkins, a pair of All-BIG EAST First Teamers, and a pair that landed on the All-Freshman Team in Alex Karahan and Donovan Clingan.
Are you kidding me with this cast? Some Broadway shows don’t come with this much A-List talent.
And what made this all the more appetizing - as if it needed anything else - was the fact that Marquette and UConn had never faced each other in BIG EAST Tournament play. It just had the feel that this one would be memorable.
And while Marquette scratched and clawed for everything it earned this season after being picked to finish ninth in the conference coaches preseason poll - things like winning the BIG EAST regular season title outright for the first time in school history and taking away almost all the top postseason individual hardware - there was still a feeling that they were under appreciated despite being ranked sixth in the nation.
The Huskies? Not so much. First of all, the Garden sounded like UConn bussed half the state of Connecticut down to watch their semifinal battle as they badly outnumbered the stout Marquette fans who made the trip in from the Midwest. And how about the ringing endorsement Providence coach Ed Cooley gave Dan Hurley’s team after their quarterfinal loss to the Huskies?
“They’re playing as well as anyone in the country,” Cooley said after the Friars were eliminated. ”Tell me a team in America playing better than that team we just played. And I’m a basketball junkie. I don’t see one team better than the University of Connecticut right now?”
Flattering praise for sure. And maybe Cooley can expect an Edible Arrangement basket from the Hurley household on Selection Sunday.
C’mon. Marquette vs. UConn. Can you think of a better way to spend your Friday night in the big city?
Well, it turns out Cooley was wrong. While UConn is still, no doubt, a top-shelf program capable of big things in the NCAA Tournament that begins next week, Friday night at the Garden it was the Golden Eagles who won the heavyweight bout on points.
Kolek and David Joplin scored 17 points each for Marquette, but Olivier-Maxence Prosper nailed the dagger when he drained what proved to be the game-winning bucket with a three-pointer with 3:41 to play for a four-point lead as Marquette outlasted UConn, 70-68, in front of a sold out Madison Square Garden.
The Golden Eagles (27-6) will now make their first foray into the BIG EAST Tournament championship game where they will face the winner of Creighton-Xavier on Saturday night at 6:30 p.m.
“That was a heck of a game for the three of us,” head coach Marquette coach Shaka Smart said, referring to himself, Kam Jones and Joplin. “The first time being part of the semifinals, Friday night, Madison Square Garden, BIG EAST Tournament, playing UConn. Doesn’t get much better than that, I guess. Unless you get to Saturday.”
And the Golden Eagles are most definitely on their way to Saturday thanks to a gritty defensive effort by Marquette. After the two teams played to a 38-38 tie through the first 20 minutes, the Golden Eagles built a 10-point lead (56-46) with 15:39 to play after three free throws from Joplin. The partisan UConn crowd, which was hitting deafening levels throughout the game, grew silent at that point. But Smart knew better.
“You knew UConn was going to make a run back,” he said.
He was right. The Huskies used a 14-4 run over the next six minutes to knot the game at 60-60 and the roar of Huskie Nation once again filled the Garden. Time and again from there UConn found themselves knocking on the door, as it trailed by no more than three points through the rest of the game. But the Huskies just couldn't knock down the door.
“I thought we had chances to take the lead and surge ahead,” Hurley said. “Just didn’t make the shots.”
And a lot of that had to do with Marquette’s stingy defense.
“Down the stretch I believe we had five straight stops in a row,” Smart said. “And that’s what we needed to win it.”
Neither team scored in the final 2:37, and as the game horn sounded after UConn’s Jordan Hawkins shot attempt missed its mark, Smart could be seen leaping in front of the Marquette bench. He was asked why.
“It just kind of felt like - I want to say this in the most respectful way possible - but it felt like a lot of people were giving UConn the game coming in,” Smart said. “And there were comments made about who owns the Garden and that kind of stuff. And, you know, we said wait a minute, we won this league. So we’re not taking a back seat to anybody. So that was just elation that, you know, our guys were able to do what we said we would do.”