Max Straus had been red hot coming down the stretch. He looked like an assassin out there, and Marquette gave him a wide open look at three to win the game. Straus lined it up and hit the front iron. Andrew Rowsey grabbed the rebound, and the rest is history. DePaul gave Marquette a scare of a lifetime and nearly ended their tournament hopes. Marquette moves on, but the tasks will keep getting harder.

Rowsey provides the first half spark
Ladies and gentleman, Rowsey is on a bit of a heater. He parlayed the Creighton success into playing well at The Garden on Wednesday night. Rowsey had 18 points in the first half and provided a ton of scoring to a Marquette team that struggled early on. He may have hogged the ball a little bit too much for my liking, but it’s hard when guys like Markus Howard fail to get going. We’ll see if he can carry the hot shooting this evening.

Steve Wojciechowski gets outcoached again by Dave Leitao
This is a little annoying. How is that DePaul’s head coach Dave Leitao, which is one of the worst in the Big East, had a better game plan versus Steve Wojciechowski. That shouldn’t happen. Wojo cannot let inferior coaches have their way with you. Simply put, it was embarrassing to watch DePaul get to the lane with ease then have nothing to solve for it. That cannot happen especially against better teams. Hopefully, DePaul didn’t how other teams how play Marquette on offense.

No Howard no problem
Rough day for Markus Howard only scoring 4 points from the field and not making a three. Good thing they are more players on this team than just Howard. They all set up in their own way. Sam Hauser did his thing like usual attacking and scoring (PS I hope his knee is okay. He slipped and didn’t look great. If he’s out, this game is curtains). Sacar Amin became a scorer, and Matt Heldt held his water defensively against DePaul’s big men. Howard did have an effective game not scoring by assisting on a bucket or two plus taking a huge charge late in the game.

Next up
Marquette meets Villanova tonight for a showdown with the Wildcats. Marquette is trying to secure their spot in the NCAA Tournament and move to the seminfinals for the first time since 2010. It’s hard to beat a team three times, and we’ll see if Nova can do it.

Charlie.