"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

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

That's More Like It: MU buries the Titans

UPDATED
Just hours removed from an underwhelming effort against Idaho State, the Marquette Golden Eagles blitzed the Detroit Titans tonight, racing to a 87-45 victory in the second round of the CBE Classic. MU shot a blistering 55% from the field tonight, including 10-19 from 3-point territory -- a far cry from last night's mindless scattershooting.

Marquette advances to the CBE final four in Kansas City where they'll look to deliver some chin music to Bob Knight's Texas Tech Red Raiders on November 20. Texas Tech coasted to an easy win over Arkansas-Little Rock on Tuesday night.

Nursing an 11-8 lead five minutes into the contest, MU ripped off an 11-1 run to open up a 22-9 advantage. MU ran away and hid from there, heading into the half with a commanding 46-22 lead. Wesley Matthews and Dominic James keyed the blowout, each delivering eleven first half points.

Marquette's defensive intensity was impressive; 20 of MU's first 46 points came off of Detroit turnovers. The second half was more of the same as the Titans had no answers for the Golden Eagles. For the game, Marquette forced 27 Detroit turnovers while limiting the Titans to just eight assists. Jerel McNeal keyed MU's suffocating defense, holding the Titans' Brandon Cotton to just seven shot attempts.

When it was over James led MU with 20 points and five assists, while Wesley Matthews tallied 15 points and eight boards. Two freshmen had breakout performances tonight -- Lazar Hayward with 14 points and David Cubillan with 10 points. Ousmane Barro played well again, logging a team-high 30 minutes while contributing 8 points, 6 rebounds and three blocked shots (and equally important -- no foul trouble once again).

This game was a laugher -- exactly what this young, developing team needed. Marquette (3-0) will host Eastern Michigan at the Bradley Center on November 18. The EMU game is not part of the CBE Classic. MU rejoins the CBE tournament in Kansas City on November 20.

UPDATED

Here is the GoMarquette official box score.

Here is the updated AP article about the game via GoMarquette.com.

Here is Todd Rosiak's recap, 'Course Reversed'.

Mike Bennett of the Palladium-Item offers this article.

John Dodds' Marquette Hoops site has this recap.

MUScoop has a bunch of great photos from last night's game.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keep on, Keepin on! Way to get it done Marquette. Wow, was I amazed tonight. What a great rebound from the previous games. Kill the Red Raiders and then handle the damn Dukies. Go MARQUETTE!!!

Anonymous said...

WAY TO GO MARQUETTE!!!

That's the capability & talent we knew was there! Beautiful game all the way around. Our boys had alot of fun too, playing much looser & confident.

It's also absolutely terrifc we gain a couple extra games against QUALITY programs.

Last night was awesome! Hopefully, we'll pound Texas Tech & have the opportunity to watch Bobby Knight get arrested for attempted murder on national television because one of his rookies missed a lay up.

jjp said...

i hate to be the devil's advocate, but as fantastic as they played last night, i think we should focus on eastern michigan before we start to worry about texas tech or duke. it should be a win, but as every previous post has shown, texas tech is on everyone's mind, just like before the CBE began, and if it weren't for a dan fitzgerald made second free throw at the end of the idaho state game, we wouldn't even be talking about kansas city...so let's make it our goal to focus our attention one game at a time and not let our excitement get the best of us.
sincerely,
j.j. in Belfast
mu class of '08

TB said...

a reality check was in order....well done JJ