Marquette Golden Eagles went into Indianapolis and a rowdy Hinkle Fieldhouse with house money. They beat Butler, and they’re 5-3 in conference near the top of the Big East. Not to mention, they have a strong road resume win. If they lose, it’s not a big deal. They were 6.5 point underdogs, no one expected them to win. What hurts about this game is Marquette had it. They were up nine with 13 minutes left. They were up six with almost three minutes left. They lost in overtime with some terribly bad basketball down the stretch. I covered some of that in another post this morning.

Player of the Game: Kamar Baldwin – Man, I’m going to be so fucking glad that Baldwin graduates in May. He is the Shamorie Ponds Memorial Marquette Killer for the year. Baldwin took over this game. He scored 31 points with seven rebounds and five assists. The Bulter guard only scored two points in the first half then he scored 29 in the second half and overtime. It would have been nice if a coach figured out a way to slow down Baldwin, but you know, I guess that’s hard to do.

Honorable Mention: Sacar Anim – What a game from Sacar. He was awesome again last night. Anim scored 21 points with four made threes. He did miss a key layup in overtime that summed up the final few minutes of this collapse for Marquette. But Anim did a great job in keeping the lead for Marquette in the second half. I’ve talked about the rotating second banana at Marquette with Sacar, Koby McEwen, and Brendan Bailey. Yet Anim is the true number two scorer on this team.

One Thing to Note: Markus Howard might be concussed – I have some serious questions about the health of Markus Howard. He took a ball to the lane and received a significant bump from a Butler player. When Howard fell, he hit his head on the chair. Why didn’t he go to the locker room and get tested for a concussion? Why didn’t someone pull him out of that game realizing he isn’t right? There are so many questions and things that went wrong with this game. If Howard misses the game on Wednesday, this discussion will get louder.

Next up: Marquette will stay on the road and play Xavier on Wednesday. The Musketeers scored a big victory against Georgetown last week but they face a tough battle with Creighton on Sunday. It is likely Xavier will be 2-5 and in need of a win. Golden Eagles will try to sweep Xavier for the second straight season.

Charlie.