The Duke Blue Devils were too much last night, edging the Marquette Golden Eagles to win the EA Sports Maui Invitational 77-73. MU played well in defeat - - Duke was just a bit too much. The Golden Eagles had no answer for Kyle Singler and DeMarcus Nelson, and failed to finish on any number of near gimmes in the lane throughout the game. Tough loss, but the energy and effort were outstanding.
Lazar Hayward led MU with 14 points. Jerel McNeal and Dominic James were selected to the all-tournament team.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY!
Here are a few recaps:
UPDATE:
A blogger from "Rumors and Rants" .. they appear to be a general sports blog. One of their writers attended Maui and wrote about all the games. His recap of the MU/Duke game is well worth the read.
MU looked great and they are only going to get better as they play more tight. I personally felt the refs were totally making calls for Duke in the first half and it got a little more fair in the second. That is what happens when you play Duke (and I'm not normally a "blame the refs" kind of guy). MU had plenty of chances and the game could have gone either way. This is going to be a great year! Go MU!
ReplyDeleteNo doubt, MU played great. It hurts to lose this one though, with the soft non-conference schedule that we play. Besides UW, this was our only chance for a quality non-conference win.
ReplyDeleteThat was a great game to watch. Other than terrible officiating of course. It was vs. Duke so what do you expect. Coach K teaches them well, especially to sit under the hoop to take charges. I wish the NCAA woudl mandate the half-circle under the hoop showing where you can't take a charge.
ReplyDeleteOh well. Should be a fun season. Wasn't the refs fault, just did a bad job.
Duke and their traveling refs must have enjoyed Maui. Lets stop play to talk with coach K, horrible calls and the continuing pandering to the Duke program? I give Crean credit I think he knows that's they way it is. Warriors were great and anybody (announcers) watching knew better.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I wasn't the only one feeling a little funny about all the calls Duke was getting. I agree, not the refs fault, but not a great job either.
ReplyDeleteWow our backcourt is good. I'm sure we all know this, but I really felt like our guards played hard and we went deep into our bench the whole tourney, and everyone was tough, especially on defense.
And holy cow, the three-point shooting in the last two games!?!?! Is this really the Marquette team we're used to? Steve Novak would be proud.
Go Marquette, even with this loss my optimism is growing for this season.
Just read Jay Bilas' recap of the Maui Invitational. He definitely shows the Duke bias in talking about his beloved former team, but he also has some good things to say about Marquette.
ReplyDeleteFirst, he has his own Maui All-Defensive team, where he selects Jerel McNeal and David Cubillan among three others. In addition, he says two key things about Marquette.
1. Marquette (and Duke) play harder than anyone, and he attributes this to why they win so consistently.
2. Bilas' says that Marquette has a legitimate chance to win the Big East this year. He even says, "I am a big fan of the way they play, and the way they go about things."
Getting respect is always good from the media, hopefully we can take it and live up to it. But I think we will.
A loss is a loss.
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