The Golden Eagles played well enough to win, but not well enough to avoid overtime or avoid losing in overtime.
If you watched Marquette women’s basketball’s Friday night game at Villanova, then you spent a lot of time hearing former Villanova head coach Harry Perretta on color commentary saying things like “Marquette deserves to win this game, but they aren’t putting Villanova away” and “If Villanova figures out how to win this game, every single player needs to go to church tomorrow morning.”
To Perretta’s point: The Golden Eagles led by as many as six points in the first quarter, and by as many as eight in the second frame. The third? MU was up six early in the frame and they bounced back from a Villanova rally to tie the game to lead by five before two very late free throws by VU star Maddy Siegrist made it a three point game with 10 minutes left. Marquette’s biggest lead in the fourth quarter was four points, and they had that advantage as late as 3:02 remaining.
The Wildcats cut it to one on a bucket by Siegrist with 35 seconds to go, and after the two teams traded turnovers, Villanova had to foul three times to get Marquette into the bonus. After all of that, there were just 2.2 seconds remaining in the game….. but Karissa McLaughlin split her free throws, so the score was 58-56 with VU inbounding in front of their own bench after a timeout to advance the ball.
Inbounds #1? Right in front of the sideline and Jordan King adeptly fouled immediately on the catch since VU wasn’t in the bonus either yet. Inbounds #2? Thrown to the far side of the rim where it was caught by Siegrist and she immediately put it up as Marquette overpursued the catch, specifically to the point of Chloe Marotta fouling her.
Swish, swish, tied at 58.
MU’s inbound with 0.9 seconds left led to nothing, and the thing went to overtime.
Marquette’s first two possessions of overtime? Two bad turnovers, and the Wildcats — excuse me, Siegrist converted off of both to lead 62-58. Siegrist came back down and blocked a Liza Karlen shot, recovered it, and Brianna Herlihy scored on the other end. 64-58.
Was it officially over? With just over three minutes left in overtime? No. Was it metaphorically over? Kinda. It was officially over when Marquette made two terrifically awful turnovers on bad entry passes to Lauren Van Kleunen, and Villanova converted off of both of them. 70-60, 1:08 to go.
Your final, from The Finn, Villanova 74, Marquette 63, in a game that Marquette had in their hands for most of if not all of the first 39 minutes and 57 seconds. 74-63 on the road in a game that Marquette controlled and also very much needed to keep their NCAA at-large hopes alive.
It’s not good pretty much all around, and that’s before I mention that Maddy Siegrist put a personal career best 42 points. Yes, 42 of Nova’s 74 came from one person, and the person who has to be #1 and #2 on the scouting report.
Up Next: Why was getting a win on Friday so important for Marquette? Well, let’s say they’re not favored in Sunday’s game. That one will be back at the McGuire Center, but it will be against #8 Connecticut. The Huskies smashed DePaul at home on Friday night after suffering their first in-league regular season loss in nine years after — surprise — Villanova beat them on Wednesday night. Tipoff is set for 1:30pm Central and you can catch the action on Fox.