Marquette Golden Eagles fan base had hit a rough patch with the season. The loss to Butler felt like the opportunity this team needed to help its bubble chances. They gave up 63 points in the second half and morale was very low especially facing Creighton, a top 10, even though they were missing Maurice Watson Jr. Golden Eagles proved everyone wrong with a huge day on offense netting 102 points in a blowout that the box score didn’t show, they were damn good on Saturday.

The Second Half Finish
Marquette played great in first halves this season, and much of the reason why they have collapses on their resume. The collapse didn’t happen on Saturday as Golden Eagles continues to play solid offense and did enough to keep Creighton at bay on the defensive end. This might be a little too #StayWoke, but Steve Wojciechowski mentioned how ‘the team doesn’t communicate enough in the second half on defense.’ Could that be due to Wojo being on the other side of the court? Maybe. I hope that’s not the case, but they looked better than the last few games.

Luke Fischer finds another gear
Who peed in Luke’s Cherrios and can they do it again for every game to come? He played like a senior leader with 18 points, eight rebounds and six blocks. He looked like a different player than the one on Monday who scored no points with only one rebound. Fischer got more looks early on in this one which seems to help him. That needs to be more of a strategy moving forward. Fischer can do this on a nightly basis, Marquette will win a bunch of games.

Doing it without Markus Howard… Kinda
This is the first game where it was relatively close and Howard didn’t have a big game yet Marquette still won. They did it with a balanced offense. Katin Reinhardt and Andrew Rowsey continue to be great assets off the bench. Reinhardt had 20 points with most of it coming in that first half when Howard found himself in foul trouble. Rowsey, who had 11, did a lot of his work in the first half as well. Reinhardt starting to find his stroke takes pressure off Howard to always be the three-point threat. Now, if they can get Sam Hauser going a little more, teams are in real trouble.

“But that win isn’t as big since Watson didn’t play”
That’s bullshit. The only people who care about that are rivals and other teams on the bubble. The committee will consider it for a second, but they’ll realize that Marquette could have done this with Watson Jr. in there. They shot over 60 percent for the game. That’s absurd. You’re not losing games when the shooting is that hot.

Players of the Game: Luke Fischer (Marquette), Davion Mintz (Creighton)

Next Up: Marquette welcomes number one Villanova to town. It’s hard to get numbers, but I’m pretty sure this is the first number one visiting Milwaukee in awhile. Golden Eagles have pulled some big upsets in this gym, and who knows it could happen again. Villanova is a little worse on the road, but still, they’re an elite team.

Charlie.