Marquette Golden Eagles had 10 days off before their game last night against Grambling State. It is almost a guarantee that Marquette would start slow. That didn’t exactly happen right away yet the middle of the first half was about as ugly as it gets. Fear not, Marquette responded from there and got hot the rest of the game. They finished on a nice run in the first half then carried it over to the second half. Golden Eagles took down Grambling State, 93-72 as they keep their non-conference success rolling.

Player of the Game: Sacar Anim – What a night for Sacar. The progression he is making in his final year has been very impressive. We wondered at the start of the season ‘Who would be Markus Howard’s second banana?’ Guesses ranged from Brendan Bailey, Koby McEwen, and Anim. It turned out to be Anim. That is an eye test belief along with statistical as KenPom has him second to Markus Howard in terms of production. He’s looked fantastic this season including last night. He scored 17 points with five 3-pointers. The Marquette senior is averaging 17.75 points per game in the last four games

Honorable Mention: Markus Howard – Another game, another big performance for Markus Howard. He finished with 26 points in 29 minutes. Howard made six 3-pointers with an offensive rating of 128 per KenPom. One of the bigger storylines was he got himself a haircut. Sometimes I worry if a new hairdo can affect performance (The same goes for facial hair), and it turns out it did not bother Howard. The Marquette star did a little more than just scoring with six rebounds and four assists.

One Thing I Liked: Koby McEwen took some baby steps last night – Even though he did not hit a shot from deep, Koby McEwen still showed some signs of life offensively. McEwen had an efficient night with 10 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Even if he is not scoring at the level we saw at the beginning of the year, McEwen can have these type of productive nights.

Next up: Marquette has a chance to get another solid resume-building win against North Dakota State on Friday night. Two things that stand out to me when looking at the Bison’s numbers. They’re not good at forcing turnovers which hurts when playing a turnover-heavy team like Marquette. And NDSU is also very bad at stopping three-pointers. That feels like an issue when facing Howard and company.

Charlie.