I Was Told There Would Be Stops: Maryland 89, Marquette 82

One of the core tenets of what head coach Shaka Smart is doing with his Marquette men’s basketball teams is getting 32 deflections in a game. Another core tenet is getting eight kills — coming up with a defensive stop three times in a row on eight different occasions — in a game.

Marquette finished their 89-82 loss to Maryland on Saturday with 24 deflections. That’s less than 32, maybe not by much, maybe a number you could live with if other things were working out for you. But it’s still missing the goal set by Smart and his staff and agreed to by the players on the team.

Advertisement

Marquette didn’t get back-to-back — not three in a row, just two in a row — stops on Maryland until there was 14:15 left in the first half. By that point, the visiting Terrapins were up 16-9, and that’s only because Royce Parham had just scored for MU on the other end to get the Golden Eagles to nine. At that that point of the game, Marquette only had five stops at all.

The Golden Eagles finished the first half with zero — nada, zip, zilch, goose egg — kills. Because they limited Maryland to just one field goal in the final eight minutes of the first half, that helped jumpstart Marquette’s offense. That’s how they flipped a 32-19 deficit to 42-42 at halftime. Marquette quite honestly had no business being tied at that point of the game, because they were just absolutely not getting stops at a clip that they needed to get them for the first 12 minutes of the contest, but somehow, they figured it all out.

Marquette opened the second half on a skunk. Six straight stops, including two turnovers. That’s two of the eight kills that Smart wants to see from his team, an indicator that the squad is accomplishing what they need to get done on the regular in order to win, a guidepost that says “hey, if you do this, we are going to win 99.9% of the time.” In the meantime, the Golden Eagles got transition buckets from Chase Ross and Nigel James, and then two free throws from…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/told-stops-maryland-89-marquette-233419789.html

Author :

Publish date : 2025-11-15 23:34:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.