Marquette Road Woes Continue

Marquette was easily beaten by the UConn Huskies today, 89-73. Don't let the 16 point gap fool you. This game wasn't close. When down by 29, Marquette scored 35 points, nearly half their total, in the final 9 minutes to narrow the gap.

Marquette's shooting woes continued for the first 30 minutes of the game, shooting around 28%. As UConn had a 20+ point lead, MU hit a number of late 3 pointers to make their final numbers a respectable 40% from the field and 47% from long range.

Road wins are tough to come by in the Big East. 43 games have been played, only 9 visitors have left the court with a victory. And 5 of those wins were against the 4 worst teams in the BE. We were 3 point underdogs, on the road, half of us predicted this as a loss, and surprise, we lost.

HOWEVER. Marquette's performance during the last two games, road games indeed, has been dismal. UL shot 49% and UConn 54%. MU has been out-rebounded 5 straight games now, with a whopping -11 today. Our game of slash to the basket hasn't worked with enough efficiency to actually win games. Ooze and Burke have a grand total of zero points, 7 rebounds, and 11 fouls between them in the last two games.

In short, while our last two games have been on the road and were expected losses, it's the way we've lost that's most troubling.

Marquette has 6 days off, then plays DePaul on Saturday night at the Bradley Center.

AP Recap / Box / Play by Play

UConn Preview

It's taken us a bit of time to get the UConn preview up and going, so it won't be as in-depth as we've done for previous games. Still no word yet on whether or not Dominic James will play today. Considering that we have beaten UConn the last two seasons, we're sure that Coach Calhoun has reminded his team and they will be fired up. Winning today will be a tall task even with DJ in the game.

Here are some quick links for the game

Rosiak's preview focuses on Maurice Acker
Rosiak's blog covers quite a bit of good info on UConn
Eric Silver has another good preview at MarquetteHoops.com

Top Five Numbers to Know about UConn. As always, information comes from Pomeroy's Scouting Report and Game Plan

39.1 - UConn's Offensive Rebounding Percentage (OR%)

• The Huskies are #22 in the country at OR%
• However, they are only 190 in the country at defending against Offensive Rebounding
• It's basically like Marquette is playing themselves in this aspect, as we are #27 on offense and #225 on defense for OR%
• Marquette has to get healthy on offensive rebounds
  

9 - UConn's national rating at effective Field Goal Defense

• Much like facing Louisville, UConn does a great job at preventing their opponents from shooting a high percentage
• A lot of this comes because UConn is #2 in the country at limiting 2-point field goals, only allowing opponents to shoot 37.2% from inside the three point line

2 - UConn's national rating at block percentage on defense

• UConn gets a block on 20.5% of all defensive possessions
• That's a block one out of every five times that an opponent tries to score
  
• Maybe 7'3" Hasheem Thabeet has something to do with this?

30% - Minimum Free Throw Rate by an opponent in four of five UConn losses

• Free Throw rate is Free Throws / Field Goals Attempted
• Of course, UConn has only allowed opponents to get a FTR this high four times, which we're sure is highly related to that massive block percentage
  
• In good news, Marquette has managed a FTR higher than 30% eleven times
• In bad news, UConn is #7 in the country at getting to line for Free Throws as well.
  

35 - UConn's national rating at pace for the game

• Uconn likes to push a quicker pace to their games at 72.5 possessions per game

Summary
UConn is strong in a lot of the same areas that Louisville was, such as blocks, limiting 2-point field goals, and limiting overall effective Field Goal %. However, they are not as strong on preventing offensive rebounds and they use a faster pace in their games. Watch to see which team does a better job of getting to the line. This one is going to be a tough game.