Creighton Basketball: 3 takeaways from Big East play loss at Marquette
By Justin Wiles
![Creighton v Marquette Creighton v Marquette](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_7557,h_4250,x_0,y_0/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/GettyImages/mmsport/184/01hjyr6zgg544gdqghts.jpg)
Saturday afternoon No. 22 Creighton traveled to Milwaukee to take on No. 10 Marquette in a matchup of two of the best teams in the Big East. The Bluejays jumped out to an 11-point in the first five minutes. Baylor Scheierman accounted for nine of the first 14 points on three made threes.
This early lead would be the largest for Creighton over the rest of the game. They did push the lead back to ten at one point last in the first half, but Marquette would not be denied on their home court. The Golden Eagles fought their way back into the game and went into the half down two despite shooting just under 28 percent from the floor.
The second half wasn't as kind to the Bluejays. Marquette finally found their shot, making six threes after the break. The Golden Eagles took their first lead of the game with 12:45 left in the second half and didn’t look back. Creighton kept firing from three making seven more from deep, to keep them in the game. But a strong second half from Tyler Kolek and David Joplin pushed Marquette’s lead to seven points and ultimately the win. In the end, Marquette walked away with a 72-67 win.
Scheierman led all scorers in this one with 23 points. Teammate Trey Alexander added 18 points for Creighton. For the home team, Tyler Kolek and Sean Jones led Marquette with 15 points each. Jones scored all of his points in only 12 minutes of play.
With this loss, Creighton drops to 9-4 on the season and 0-2 in league play. This is the first time since 2014-15 that the Bluejays have lost their first two Big East games. In that season they dropped their first eight conference games and ended the season with only 14 total wins, four of them coming in conference.
This Creighton team is far too talented to drop that many games, and I think they will get back on track and finish the season strong. A five-point loss on the road to a top-10 team isn’t the end of the world for the Bluejays, but there are some things that they can do better moving forward. And I have no doubt Creighton and Head Coach Greg McDermott will make the necessary corrections. But here are my three takeaways from this loss to Marquette.