On the college football podcast, The Solid Verbal, they have games where they call them a ‘letdown lookahead sandwich’ game. How that’s defined is a game in the middle of two big games that might not be as important. Insert the UTEP miners as the perfect letdown lookahead meat. It’s the liverwurst between two tasty pieces of Sourdough bread. Marquette beat then 12th ranked Kansas State last week, and they’ll play now 12th ranked Wisconsin this week. The Miners of Texas El-Paso were in the middle of it. Thankfully, Marquette came away with a victory, 76-69, where they did not shoot well but did enough to win.

Player of the Game: Joey Hauser – Hope y’all are ready for the Joey Hauser takeover because it’s coming sooner rather than later. Hauser had a nice game on Tuesday night with 15 points making all five shots. He also got to the free throw line seven times in the game and made four of them. This is an encouraging development for Marquette. They are adding scorers that aren’t just Markus Howard and Joey’s older brother, Sam Hauser. It’s becoming more of a team effort even though this team looks somewhat lost on offense.

Silver Star: Sacar Anim – Another game, another good Sacar outing. We’re starting to see him take shape as a scorer which is a really good thing for Marquette moving forward. Anim followed up a strong game on Saturday with another strong game on Tuesday night. He scored 14 points with six rebounds going six of nine (Nice) from the field. Anim pulled down three offensive rebounds as well giving the Golden Eagles more chances to convert on the offensive side of the ball.

One Thing I Liked: Found a way to win without the three – Marquette is three-point dependent. They’re more like a new age NBA team with their mindset. That said, the team figured out how to win a game without shots falling. That’s really important. I’m not sure if last year or the year prior’s team would have been able to do that. Part of the reason why Marquette needed three pointers to fall was due to their bad defense. To me, this win signals a win for the defense and ability to get easy buckets at the rim.

One THing I Didn’t Like: Ice cold from deep – Even though I liked how Marquette did without the three, they still need to better from deep. They shot their worst from beyond the arc since 2015-2016 season going a woeful 4/22 from deep. Is it a cause for concern? Nah. Sam Hauser will not miss six straight three pointers again in a game. Howard missed six of his own. That’s very un-Marquette. You hope that doesn’t continue versus Wisconsin.

Next up: Badgers come to town for a rivalry game. If they tell you differently, they’re fucking liars. This should be a doozy. It’s arguably one of the better Marquette-Wisconsin matchups in awhile. Curious to see what the line will be for this game. My guess is Marquette will be slight underdogs at home where they haven’t lost yet. Marquette will need to be on their game from three and Joey Hauser + Theo John stopping Ethan Happ will be the top priorities.

Charlie.