No. 6 Marquette beats 11th-ranked Connecticut and will play for Big East tournament championship for first time
NEW YORK – The Marquette men’s basketball team doesn’t care what you think.
Picked to finish near the bottom of the Big East, the Golden Eagles just won the first outright title in school history with the most wins ever in the conference.
What about most of the pundits picking fourth-seeded Connecticut to steamroll to the league tournament title at Madison Square Garden, despite MU being the top seeding and the sixth-ranked team in the country?
Well, the Golden Eagles just scrapped their way to a tension-filled 70-68 victory over the Huskies on Friday and will play in the Big East title game for the first time since joining the conference in 2005.
BOX SCORE:Marquette 70, Connecticut 68
You wanted to say MU stood no chance in the semifinal in front of a juiced up crowd of 19,812 fans with its two most indispensable players battling serious foul trouble? You should know better.
“I want to say this in the most respectful way possible,” MU head coach Shaka Smart said. “But it felt like a lot of people were giving UConn the game coming in. And there was 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.
“And you can say that, but then going and doing it is another thing. And you know it's going to be hard. You know it's going to come down to the last minute or even second of the game. It did. So that was just elation that, you know, our guys were able to go do what we said we would do.”
You like watching MU’s efficient offense, but you are concerned about the team’s defense in tournament play? The Golden Eagles won this game by digging deep on the defensive end and getting five straight stops to hold the Huskies scoreless for the final 2 minutes and 38 seconds.
MU will play Xavier on Saturday in the championship game. The teams split the regular-season series.
"I feel like we're the underdog almost every game it feels like," MU's Oso Ighodaro said. "People still don't believe in us the way we believe in ourselves.
"Everyone was picking UConn, we came out with the win. So we just keep that chip on our shoulder every game we play."
Tyler Kolek has strong start, then David Joplin comes in to help
The Golden Eagles are built different. There were no visible nerves with sophomore shooting guard Kam Jones coming out for player introductions by crawling on his hands and knees, a TikTok trend that was inspired by Rhianna’s performance in the Super Bowl.
Then there was Big East player of the year Tyler Kolek, relentlessly attacking a defense anchored by Connecticut’s 6-foot-9, 245-pound Adama Sanogo and several athletic players.
Kolek scored 14 points on 5-for-6 shooting before he was called for an offensive foul with just under three minutes remaining in the first half for his second personal. Ighodaro, the other hub of MU’s offense, was already on the bench with two fouls.
That meant David Joplin, the Big East sixth man of the year, got to go from understudy to star just a few blocks south of Broadway.
The 6-foot-7 Joplin hit 2 three-pointers in the first half and also battled Sanogo and 7-2 Donovan Clingan on the blocks on defense.
“Just fight,” Joplin said. “When we're dealing with foul trouble, I knew I had to come in fight for positioning down there and be smart.
“If they want to post me up down there, I have to manage the offensive end. They've got to come out and guard me. I took advantage of it."
Olivier-Maxence Prosper leads defensive effort
The teams entered halftime tied at 38-38 and the game had the makings of a Big East classic.
The second half delivered.
Ighodaro only played six minutes in the second half, picking up his third foul after just 45 seconds and then his fourth with just under 11 minutes remaining.
Kolek and Joplin picked up their fourth fouls a few minutes later. That meant Smart had to rely on freshmen Chase Ross and Ben Gold in crunch time.
“It's a testament to the depth that we have on our team,” Smart said. “At one point, I looked out and we got a bunch of freshmen and sophomores out there fighting, battling, scratching for their lives.
“These guys didn't blink. They were lost in a fight the entire night. It was a ton of fun to watch.”
MU had to rely on its defense, led Olivier-Maxence Prosper’s lockdown effort on Huskies sharpshooter Jordan Hawkins, who came into the game averaging 16.5 points per game and shooting 37.7% on three-pointers.
Hawkins finished with five points on 2-for-11 shooting.
“When you play a guy that cuts really well, that moves really well, has a really quick trigger and can really shoot the ball, you got to be on edge and alert at all times,” Prosper said. “You really got to anticipate what he does.
“You can’t react to what he does. You really got to try to anticipate, blow up their screens as much as you can and then have a high contest up at all times.”
Marquette will play Xavier for championship on Saturday night
Without Kolek and Ighodaro to generate offense, the Golden Eagles got big three-pointers from Ross and Jones, who finished with 14 points.
The biggest shot came from Prosper, whose triple gave MU a 70-66 lead with 3:42 remaining.
“We pick each other up,” Prosper said. “No matter the circumstances, foul trouble, whatever. We got enough guys on this roster that can come in and impact the game and help us win. And that’s what we did today.
“We didn’t look at it as, oh, we don’t have most of our stars in. We said like, OK, this is a challenge. We’re going to come at it with everything we got and then the result be what the result be.”
The Golden Eagles didn’t score again after that bucket.
Ighodaro and Kolek came back in with 2:14 remaining, but Kolek missed three shots and Ighodaro couldn’t knock in a free throw.
But in the final four minutes, MU’s defense only allowed two putbacks from Sanogo (19 points and 11 rebounds).
Jones harassed Hawkins into a miss at the buzzer, setting off a wild celebration.
“These guys, if you cut them open, you'll find inside them championship DNA,” Smart said. "It's exciting because these guys are just in their sophomore year. We've got three freshmen out there playing significant minutes. We've got another sophomore in Stevie (Mitchell) and three juniors.
“The reason that they've built that character about them is because of the way they feel about each other. That's what's allowed us to respond when we hit adversity.”
Doubt them at your own peril.
More:Get to know seven teams Marquette could face in the NCAA men's basketball tournament
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Marquette beat UConn Big East tournament semifinal game, 70-68
