Marquette Basketball: Takeaways from upset win over No. 4 Wisconsin

Aggressive, tough basketball peaks through as new brand for Marquette

This Marquette team has a different style of play than in years past. They attack the paint and truly go after the rim in ways that weren’t apart of the plan last year. Now, when Markus Howard is on your team that impacts the way you play.

Last year against Wisconsin the Golden Eagles had 17 free throw attempts in the entire game. Tonight, they had 17 in the first half alone. They got the ball inside to Lewis and Theo John, and when they didn’t- the lane was penetrated by Carton, McEwen, and Cain. Not many people had on their Bingo card that John and Lewis would put up more points than Potter and Reuvers in a battle down low.

The Golden Eagles played more physical in-your-face basketball than Wisconsin. I cannot tell you the last time I saw that in this matchup. This is a whole new look for Marquette, one that is less reliant on outside shooting. Aside from a minute stretch to open the second half where Marquette picked up four fouls, the aggressiveness the Eagles showed was extremely productive.

As a team, they shot 5-14 from three-point range, right at 35%. Last year against the Badgers, the Golden Eagles shot 9-19 (48%) from behind the arc, yet still scored fewer points than in this game. Not having Howard is obviously not a good thing, but it does allow coach Wojciechowski to perhaps play a little bit different brand of basketball.

It’ll be fun getting to see Marquette square off against the rough and tough crowd in the Big East such as Seton Hall and Xavier.