The Marquette Golden Eagles topped the IUPUI Jaguars 76-68 tonight at the Bradley Center in the season opener for both clubs. Jerel McNeal led MU with 20 points and six rebounds.
MU led 39-31 at the half, but IUPUI stormed to a lead early in the second half on the strength of a shocking 17-2 run. Marquette regained its footing thanks to McNeal's aggressive play and a smothering backcourt rotation to gut out a close victory. Late in the game MU had several chances to put distance between themselves and the Jaguars, but a series of silly fouls and turnovers kept this one close to the bitter end.
George Hill led IUPUI with 19 points.
Here's the SportingNews box score.
MU looked good in the first half, although all game they never looked like they had any fire.
ReplyDeleteD. Burke in the starting rotation has got to go. He does not look good at all imo.
I do think it's gonna take at least five - seven games before Crean gets a solid rotation down so I'll give the guys some leniency for that. Then again, it is the seventh (?) game they've played now including Vancouver and the exhibitions.
Silly, silly fouls at the end to keep them in it. McNeal is awesome.
Comment - why is Mbakwe sitting so close to the court with his leg in a full-cast/brace? He's not too far from where guys could go piling out. Just an observation I saw tonight.
Nice update on Christopherson. I was looking for him all game and wondered if he was a last-minute red-shirt.
Getting a solid rotation down? This is essentially the same team from a year ago, basically adding only Acker.
ReplyDeleteMU looked very lethargic, which I'm sure is a result of extra hard practices early in the season...but still. Not a good performance.
And the Bradley Center was a morgue last night.
For a OOC game, I'd say the crowd was slightly above average in volume and noise. The students filled about 1/4th of their upper deck sections, and the lower bowl was full. Grading on a curve, not too bad.
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