Murphy’s Law was in full effect in the first 25 minutes of Marquette women’s basketball’s loss to Georgetown on Saturday afternoon at the Al McGuire Center. It seemed like during the early going, everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong for the Golden Eagles.
The Hoyas scored 11 unanswered points to open the game, causing Marquette head coach Cara Consuegra to pivot to her bench, replacing all five of her starters at the 4:27 mark in the first quarter. The switch couldn’t lift Marquette out of the drought desert; as the Al McGuire Center crowd was silenced from the get-go and the Hoya sideline cheered time and time again after forcing turnovers.
Georgetown tallied eight more points before Marquette could find its first score, via a pair of free throws from Skylar Forbes, with 90 seconds left in the opening quarter.
“I was displeased with the effort from our starters, so I used my timeout to let them know I was displeased, and that if I didn’t feel their effort would change, we were going to change the lineup, so that’s what I did,” Marquette head coach Cara Consuegra said.
Every time Marquette looked to dig themselves out in the first half, such as when Jordan Meulemans stepped up and converted a 3-pointer from the top of the key in the second quarter, Georgetown would answer right back with an equalizer of its own. The Hoyas were red-hot, shooting 56% from the field in the opening 20 minutes.
They finished the period with a kick out pass to an open Brianna Scott from the top of the key, an effective summary of how the first half had gone for the Golden Eagles.
Marquette then flipped the script in the turnover department, winning that battle by eight in the final 20 minutes, compared to giving up seven more than the Georgetown in the first 20. It was more evidence of the Golden Eagles’ inconsistencies protecting the basketball.
“That’s something that’s been up and down for us all season, we have stretches where we take care of the ball and then we have stretches where we don’t take care of the ball quite as well, so the only answer I have is that we’re working on it, watching film and working in practice,” Consuegra said.
But, the answering pattern resumed out of the intermission. Even with a Lee Volker contested 3-pointer and Jaidynn Mason fast break layup to open the half for Marquette, Georgetown hit another triple to mark its largest lead of the game, going ahead by 27 points at the 6:53 mark in the third quarter.
That would serve as the Hoyas’ magnum opus as the Golden Eagles slowly chipped their way back. Volker and Mason would combine for 24 second half points, including three 3-pointers from Volker, to go along with eight rebounds for her on the afternoon. She said that trusting her 3-point shooting ability in those situations is a reflection of her process.
“I think my teammates and coaches put a lot of confidence in me, and all the reps over the summer up until this morning,” Volker said.
Even as Marquette tried to knock on the door in the fourth quarter as they trimmed their deficit to 12 points, Georgetown would make its last field goal of the contest a big one — a momentum quashing shot clock beating 3-pointer from Khia Miller, who finished with a game high 21 points.
While the Hoyas would go without a basket from the field for nearly the last seven minutes, the initial spiral of woes and miscues was insurmountable to climb out of for the Golden Eagles, as the Hoyas remained in the driver’s seat from tip to horn.
Consuegra said that overall, her team’s start to the game was less than ideal, but it can serve as a reality check as Marquette gears up for further Big East play.
“It felt like a nightmare, we have to learn and grow, we’re not going to have many games that go that bad to start, that’s not the type of team we are,” Consuegra said. “Sometimes, you’re going to have games where you show up and things aren’t going to go your way, we were factors in that, but we’ll keep learning and keep getting better.”
This article was written by Mikey Severson. He can be reached at michael.severson@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MikeySeversonMU.