On Wednesday night, McDonough Gymnasium played host to a Big East clash between two hungry teams, as Marquette (12-7, 3-2) and Georgetown (12-6, 2-3) met for the fourth time in history. Both teams were coming off losses to nationally ranked Big East teams—Georgetown to Louisville and Marquette to Rutgers. Unsurprisingly, both squads showed up hungry for a victory. Unfortunately for the Hoyas, the game was a tale of two halves and Marquette came out hungrier in the second one, beating the Hoyas 80-65.
Senior guard Karee Houlette opened Georgetown’s first half with two free throws at the 18:03 mark that started a 6-0 Hoya run. The Hoyas’ luck was quickly pushed as Marquette rushed back to even the game at nine.
From there, the Hoyas charged to a 17-4 run, which set the tone for the rest of the first half. During that stretch, junior guard Meredith Cox provided a well-timed spark off the bench, knocking down a big three-pointer shortly after entering the game. On the next defensive possession, she forced a turnover and passed to a streaking Adria Crawford, who ran down the lane for the easy finger roll.
Marquette called a strategic timeout, and after a much needed respite, the Golden Eagles went on a tear of their own. Freshman center Georgie Jones quickly scored four points as the Golden Eagles cut the lead to six.
Unfazed by the stretch, Georgetown responded with another Cox three that propelled the Hoyas to a 7-0 run, their biggest lead of the game. The Golden Eagles broke the Hoyas’ run, but the Hoyas quickly added another basket to go into halftime ahead by a score of 37-26.
The story of the first half was junior forward Jaleesa Butler, who led the team with 15 points on 7-9 shooting and four rebounds. Butler led the Hoyas’ strong effort that saw the team shoot 48.3 percent from the field, including a devastatingly accurate 40 percent from the arc. The bench added to that success by scoring 22 of the 37 first half points.
The Golden Eagles weren’t able to match the Hoyas’ strong first half effort, shooting only 34.8 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from the three point line.
The Hoyas were seemingly in control of the game, but the Golden Eagles weren’t ready to fly the
coup just yet.
Marquette desperately needed one of its players to step up big in the second half if they wanted to make their long trip to D.C. worthwhile. Marquette head coach Terri Mitchell must have said something right in the locker room, because her team entered the second half with renewed energy.
“We had to get our legs under us,” Mitchell said she told her players at halftime.“We have nothing to lose, keep attacking, when we break the press, go, and we’ll see what happens. The bottom line is that we got more aggressive [after halftime].”
Mitchell’s advice to her team eventually paid off. At the 7:22 mark in the second half, Marquette surged past the slowly fading Hoyas for a 59-57 lead. Their lead quickly snowballed as the Golden Eagles poured in 13 straight points, putting the game out of reach. The Hoyas quickly realized that their early game lead had evaporated and the game’s final outcome was almost certain to be a defeat.
The Golden Eagles rode strong efforts from three key players. Sophomore Angel Robinson led the attack with 13 points, five assists, and three steals in the second half alone.
“Shoot with confidence,” Robinson said. “We know we can knock the shots down that we were missing in the first half. That’s what the difference was.”
Marquette Senior Erin Monfre helped the Golden Eagles by shooting lights out from behind the arc, going a perfect 4-4 for 12 points.
Freshman Jessica Pachko was the third musketeer in Marquette’s trio of excellence, scoring 16 points after intermission and helping the Golden Eagles post standout shooting percentages.
The regulation size of a basketball hoop measures 18 inches in diameter, but the Golden Eagles made it look like the Tidal Basin as they shot an astonishing 70 percent from the field and an even better 86 percent from behind the three-point line. Nearly everything that went up came down into pure nylon.
The only consistently bright spot for the Hoyas was Butler, who scored a career-high 27 points in the losing effort.
The rest of the Hoyas’ game was chock-full of mistakes. They turned the ball over 12 times and committed 16 fouls.
“You can’t foul, can’t turn the ball over,” Georgetown coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said. “Not against teams that are good and you can’t start off the second half like that.”
Marquette’s dominant second-half play quickly wiped the Hoyas’ solid first-half from memory. The Hoyas learned the hard way that a basketball game requires a full 40-minute effort—not just one great half.
In the end, Georgetown fell to a poor 2-4 Big East record.
The Hoyas will look to put together a complete game when they travel to the University of South Florida on January 24 to face a team that has the same paltry conference record as the Hoyas. Hopefully, the Hoyas can get their season back on track.
