"My rule was I wouldn't recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house.
That's not my world. My world was a cracked sidewalk." —Al McGuire

Friday, December 22, 2006

Marquette pounds Morgan State

Marquette topped Morgan State 77-57 tonight at the Bradley Center, moving to 12-2 on the season.

Jerel McNeal was spectacular tonight leading MU with a career-high 25 points to along with seven assists. Dan Fitzgerald dropped 11 points -- the only other Golden Eagle in double figures.

Lousy opponent? Yes.

Are the players that MU needs to produce in conference play delivering (read: McNeal and Fitz?). Yes.

Did they make a few free-throws? ...I'll take 81%, 13-16.

AP Recap

Boxscore

Here's a TERRIFIC recap of the game from one of our commenters.....terrific stuff.

Rosiak on McNeal's career night.

MUScoop recaps the post game interviews in this thread.

Gimme the win and let's have a Merry Christmas.


BTW, to all of our readers -- Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Be safe and enjoy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good solid win, nothing bad nothing special, we took care of business. Have a great Christmas, and we will move on to Savanah State.
GO MARQUETTE!!!!!

Anonymous said...

good enough for me.

McNeal is playing great, what a player

Anonymous said...

McNeal was great. He did shoot too many three's, but he filled the stat sheet and took charge of the game and when he was around 50% shooting overall so you can't complain. His early free throw success helped ease the burden on the entire team. Three turnovers can be overlooked when he gets seven assists on some nice passes.

When Barro is successful offensively, this team wins games. For a few games he had more turnovers than field goals, so hopefully he can stay consistent with around 8 points per game with a very high field goal percentage.

Hopefuly Matthews can start scoring a little more. He hasn't been scoring a ton lately and when he does it seems like he holds the ball for awhile to come up with his points, but at least he's efficient and isn't forcing up shots anymore. Those 3-11 shooting nights hurt more than they help, but nobody can complain about 8 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists.

I like Fitzgerald starting and Hayward relieving him. If the two could combine for at least 15 points and 10 rebounds per game at the 4 spot it would do wonders for this team. Hayward still has to look to make passes, even if he has a good paint presence. Fitzgerald's range was great, hopefully Hayward will be able to hit some eventually.

Blackledge makes his presence known. He's a good rebounder and pretty decent inside and he can make passes. Hopefully he showed he deserves the extended minutes he received. He might need to work on his defense but he's definately better all around than Lott and Burke. Either Tom Crean is going to chew him out for shooting those two 3's or they're trying to develop his range

Good to see the team dominate with everyone scoring some points and the leading scorer not being James. Also good to see 40 minutes of strong basketball instead of trailing at halftime or playing flat with a lead in the second half. I think they're starting to find their game heading into conference play.

Gene Frenkle said...

Great summary of the game. I'd only add that Blackledge really could become an x-factor for MU in some games yet to be played. The guy's faster than anyone on the court it seems, he can pass the ball well, and he throws off shots w/his insane wingspan. It was good seeing him play so much. Either Crean was sending a message, or, the way I see it, he wanted to get him some game minutes prior to the conference schedule.

McNeal's been my personal cryptonite and the last five games he's gotten better and better. Still wish he wouldn't shoot the three, but if they are falling...

Great site guys. Have a Merry X-mas.