Marquette women’s basketball began both halves the same way. Its defense forced visiting Creighton into a slew of misses, and its offense took advantage of its chances.
The difference in the 67-49 victory was how in the second half the Golden Eagles sustained the hot start beyond the start.
In the first quarter, their 8-0 lead in which they held the Bluejays to miss their first five shots turned into an 11-7 advantage going into the second after seven turnovers and a handful of travels. It became impossible to tell Marquette’s start was what it was when, after five scoreless minutes, Creighton took a 12-11 lead early in the second quarter.
In the third, after forcing a Bluejays timeout only three minutes into the quarter and scoring the first four points, the Golden Eagles kept their foot on the birds’ necks. What was a 29-24 halftime advantage had ballooned to 44-26 heading into the final 10 minutes.
Creighton scored only two points. It shot 1-for-13, including 0-for-6 from beyond the arc. It ended the period on a six-minute scoreless drought.
Marquette scored 15 points. It shot 6-for-13 from the floor, despite going 0-for-6 from beyond the arc. It ended the period on a 10-0 run.
The sloppiest offensive quarter in an offensively sloppy night was the Golden Eagles’ from start to finish thanks to their defense. By allowing only one basket, they turned what appeared to be a start wasted by clanks into anything but, putting one hand on victory with one quarter of the game still to play.
“We’re going to have games like this where offensively, we didn’t get a great rhythm, we didn’t make some shots we normally make. I do think some of that was a credit to Creighton,” Marquette head coach Cara Consuegra said.
“But what we know about ourselves is we can always defend, and so on a night when our offense wasn’t the best that it could be, we were able to hang our hat on what we do well and defend. And obviously that was a separator for us in the third quarter.”
Marquette’s good defensive work out of the locker room made up for its 3-for-11 shooting from deep in the second half.
Immune to those difficulties letting the ball fly was Olivia Porter, who accounted for all the Golden Eagles’ second half threes. Unlike some of her teammates, the senior guard’s shooting wings could not be clipped. She matched her number in points (23), beating her previous career-high of 18 on 7-of-14 shooting, including 5-for-10 from beyond the arc.
“Prior games, I haven’t made a three,” Porter said. “So just the confidence that the coaching staff had in me saying leaders are believers and that I will make threes was a big factor of me making them.”
Viewers could not tell Porter had not made a 3-pointer in Marquette’s three previous games, going 0-for-7 from deep since Dec. 20.
Overcoming one miss in the opening quarter, she nailed her first trey with just under three minutes remaining in the first half, sinking a second in the waning seconds to go into the locker room only a single point away from tying her season high of 11.
In fourth quarter, Porter piled on making all making three of her attempts from beyond the arc, the last of which, with 2:26 remaining, marked her personal best in scoring.
“Their game plan was to basically sink off me and help in the paint,” Porter said. “So I told my teammates to skip it, and I had to make sure that I had confidence to knock it down.”
Behind Porter came three more Golden Eagles in double-digit-land. Skylar Forbes came in second with 12 points (not to mention her 10 rebounds), followed by Jaidynn Mason and Halle Vice, who both had 10.
Overall, though, it was not a picturesque night for Marquette’s offense. There were multiple scoreless droughts that lasted minutes. The blue & gold committed 17 turnovers. Porter was the lone Golden Eagle to convert multiple threes.
But the defense ensured Creighton’s attack was even less pleasing to the eye. The Bluejays were held to shoot 30% overall and 23.1% from deep. They scored only nine points off their 17 takeaways. They had a mere seven assists.
“We have our mantra, ‘We Defend,’ so we take really a lot of pride in our defense,” Porter said. “It just gives us confidence that no matter what teams may throw at us, we can conquer it, and we can win in a variety of ways.”
This story was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at jack.albright@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.