Marquette Basketball: Golden Eagles fall to Wisconsin in annual rivalry game

Marquette Basketball was looking to make up for last year’s in-state rivalry loss at home to Wisconsin but got outplayed by the Badgers in a tough loss.

Marquette Basketball arrived in Madison to a white-out capacity crowd at the Kohl Center Saturday for a matinee and the 130th meeting with Wisconsin, but an in-state rivalry game that is usually pretty close saw a game that Marquette never led. Outside of an early second-half run, Wisconsin controlled the game and ran their students onto the court with a meaningful upset of their in-state rival, 75-64.

Although Marquette opened up the game with full-court pressure, the energy that the Golden Eagles brought in the first half didn’t seem to be on pace with what they’ve shown so far this season. In a tightly officiated game, Marquette found themselves picking up fouls through their aggressiveness, changing the pace and intensity of the defense. The Badgers were the ones setting the pace within their half-court offense and, at one point, led Marquette in rebounds by a whopping 21 boards, cleaning up the offensive glass and creating second-chance points by the truckload.

Wisconsin hovered around a double-digit lead for much of the game, in large part due to the first-half performance of junior guard Max Klesmit. Max went 5-8 from beyond the arc on his way to 21 points in the first half alone, hitting shots at all the right times. The shots that didn’t go in for the Badgers were given a second chance on over 48% of their misses, creating a lopsided win in second chance points over Marquette 18-2. When they weren’t putting it back, Wisconsin was getting to the line. The Badgers took advantage of the tightly called game, hitting 24 out of 28 free throws, an advantage they would win by 13 points.

Shaka seemed to get his team right at halftime, as Marquette ran out on a 14-2 run to start the second half, shrinking the lead to just 1. This 10-minute stretch would be the best the Golden Eagles would look all day, behind the familiar pressure and turnovers and an energized demeanor. Unfortunately for Marquette, this didn’t translate to rebounding the basketball the rest of the way out, and Wisconsin was able to consistently score points on extended possessions. Wisconsin slowly grew the lead back to double digits and killed much of the clock in the final 3 minutes, securing their third straight rivalry victory against Marquette and their 71st overall.

If there is such a thing as a “good loss,” this could be it for Marquette. They were taken out of their brand of basketball, didn’t shoot well, didn’t rebound well, and didn’t show the same raw tenacity that we’re used to seeing from Shaka’s squad this season. The season is long, and even the best teams have rough games. Time will quickly tell what Marquette will take away from Saturday and how well they bounce back when they host Shaka Smart’s former team in a very intriguing matchup with #16 Texas on Wednesday at Fiserv Forum.