Inside the Al McGuire Center on Sunday night, it was the Halle Vice show.
The junior guard finished with a career-high 32 points and 11 rebounds, her fourth-straight double-double, to lead Marquette women’s basketball (10-5, 4-2 Big East) to an 85-69 victory over Villanova (12-3, 5-1 Big East). It was most points by a Marquette player since Selena Lott scored 34 on Jan. 10, 2020 against St. John’s.
Vice got to work early against the Wildcats’ defense — one of the best in the conference — scoring 14 points on perfect shooting in the first quarter.
“I was just letting it fly today,” Vice said. “And yeah, it turned out well.”
After the game, head coach Cara Consuegra found Vice on the court for a well-earned hug.
“I just said to her, ‘Look, we knew this was coming,’” Consuegra said. “She holds herself to a super high standard — almost too high of a standard at times — where she’s got to play a little bit more like this. Just confident, not overthinking, being who she is. And I think she’s really embraced that, particularly in our last two games.”
And if Vice was the star of the show, junior forward Skylar Forbes and senior guard Jaidynn Mason were the ever-so-talented supporting acts. The duo, both of whom missed playing time recently due to illness, contributed 20 points each to the Golden Eagles’ victory.
With different players — like Forbes and Mason — in-and-out-of the lineup all season, Marquette hasn’t had many opportunities to play games at full strength. But one of those rare opportunities came Sunday against the Wildcats.
“I think this is the first game where I felt like we were getting closer to being on all cylinders,” Consuegra said. “We haven’t had an opportunity to do that this year because of people in and out of lineup and different things going on, and today was kind of the closest I felt that way.”
The Golden Eagles had control from the jump — literally, as Forbes won the tipoff. Midway through the first quarter, the team went on a 12-2 run in less than four minutes, fueled by a barrage of twos and threes from Vice, Forbes and Mason.
Vice then drained another 3-pointer with less than a minute left in the opening quarter, and after a buzzer shot from Villanova was determined to have gotten off to late to count, Marquette took a nine point lead after 10 minutes of play.
Despite Vice, Forbes and Skylar leading the way offensively, Consuegra credited all of her players for contributing to the game. Defensively, the whole-team effort was evident.
After maintaining a multiple-possession lead through halftime, the Golden Eagles allowed a mere nine points in the third quarter. A steal by Mason led to a fast break layup and a block by Forbes put an exclamation point on Marquette’s advantage.
“Our kids really trust each other defensively, and they know we can get stops when we need to get stops,” she said. “I thought our players did a phenomenal job on the game plan on a tough turnaround from traveling back from Cincinnati, obviously not having all the players available.”
Villanova made a last-ditch effort to cut away at Marquette’s lead, sparked by sophomore guard Jasmine Bascoe’s pair of threes early in the fourth quarter. But Forbes was there to answer with two of her own, and the Wildcats were ultimately unable to claw back, falling 85-69.
“We knew we were going to have to play our best to be able to beat them,” Consuegra said. “Jasmine Bascoe is one of the best guards in the league; she’s going to make some tough shots, they’re going to make a few threes. We just have to keep going back at them, and I thought our kids really embraced that and did very well.”
Up next for the Golden Eagles is a Thursday night affair with Creighton inside the Al McGuire Center.
This story was written by Mia Thurow. She can be reached at mia.thurow@marquette.edu.