MU Women - 2 home games this weekend

[Marquette Fan]

Come down to the Al this weekend and cheer on the #11 first place MU Women in one of their final two regular season games - Fri. at 7P vs. Butler (3rd place in the BE) and Sun. at 2P vs. Xavier (last in the BE).  There will be a post-game ceremony Sunday to honor the 6 seniors.  MU stands at 13-1 in the BE and it would probably be in their best interest to win out to assure themselves at least a 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament which means hosting two games at the Al.  There were 3 key upsets tonight of Iowa, Miami and South Carolina which are all teams fighting for 3 and 4 seeds also - this helps Marquette as long as they can keep winning.

MU wraps up the #1 seed in the BET and clinches at least a tie of the regular season title with one win this weekend and clinches an outright title with two wins.  They won the BET in 2017 and tied DePaul for the regular season title in 2018 before getting blown out by DePaul in the BET final.  The BET is hosted by DePaul at Wintrust Arena once again this year. 

Go Marquette!!!

[Marquette Fan]

Things are not looking so good for MU after tonight - not just the loss to Butler that they suffered but I'm thinking that chances are pretty good Erika Davenport's career is over .  I'm guessing she suffered an ACL injury based on her reaction after she went down and her screams of pain.  She was the player MU could least afford to lose and I feel awful for her if her career ended tonight with an injury...

[Cheeks]

Things are not looking so good for MU after tonight - not just the loss to Butler that they suffered but I'm thinking that chances are pretty good Erika Davenport's career is over .  I'm guessing she suffered an ACL injury based on her reaction after she went down and her screams of pain.  She was the player MU could least afford to lose and I feel awful for her if her career ended tonight with an injury...

Damn, that stinks

[Warrior1969]

Terrible night all around last night at the AL.  Only 2000 fans.  Davenport goes down with an injury and carried off the court, if it is not an ACL type injury I will be shocked.  Yet MU still had 11 point lead late.  Butler goes on 11-0 run, Keiger doesn't even call timeout.  Heideman has worst game ever with 3 points and they lose.  Ncaa hosting odds on thin ice.

[MU82]

Terrible night all around last night at the AL.  Only 2000 fans.  Davenport goes down with an injury and carried off the court, if it is not an ACL type injury I will be shocked.  Yet MU still had 11 point lead late.  Butler goes on 11-0 run, Keiger doesn't even call timeout.  Heideman has worst game ever with 3 points and they lose.  Ncaa hosting odds on thin ice.

Fire Keiger. (But keep Kieger.)

[Marquette Fan]

Terrible night all around last night at the AL.  Only 2000 fans.  Davenport goes down with an injury and carried off the court, if it is not an ACL type injury I will be shocked.  Yet MU still had 11 point lead late.  Butler goes on 11-0 run, Keiger doesn't even call timeout.  Heideman has worst game ever with 3 points and they lose.  Ncaa hosting odds on thin ice.

I think the game was lost when they went up 51-43 and had chances on two straight possessions to extend the lead but did not score.  And then Butler went on a run and took the lead and MU never really recovered.

I think Hiedeman's game at St. John's last week might rival last night for worst game ever for her - both nights she only had 3 points although she was had more missed shot attempts last night than at St. John's (1-13 last night and 1-4 at St. John's).  She also fouled out in the game last week and only played about 15 minutes.  And she was only 1-9 from the field against Georgetown.  Some of us were joking after the game last night that she just doesn't play well on Fridays so she's due for a big game on Sunday .  I'm not sure how much they need that though - Xavier is by far the worst team in the BE.  If they can't beat them easily even without Davenport, they're in big trouble.

And while they didn't miss a beat when Blockton was out, I just don't think that's true for Davenport.  Her post scoring and rebounding can't be replaced.  LVK did step up nicely last night but she's just not the threat offensively Davenport is and can't rebound like her.  Her play has also been inconsistent.

I feel like their chances to host in the postseason are slipping away.  They'll still make the NCAA Tourney but not sure they will get a 4.  ESPN's Charlie Creme had already dropped them from a 2 to a 4 in his projections after the SJU loss.  And now they have another loss and I'm not sure what the chances are that they will win out.

Disappointing crowd size but I can't say it surprised me.  And it was another sit on your hands crowd for a lot of it where I could hear Butler's bench cheering for D when MU had the ball for most of the game.  The crowd did come alive at the end a bit.  I had hoped they could sell out for senior day and now I'm just hoping that they can get over 2500 fans.  I'm guessing Sandra Dahling will be the one to start in place of Davenport with LVK or Lott coming in for her early in the game.

[Warrior1969]

Is there one more top 16 Reveal?

[brewcity77]

Is there one more top 16 Reveal?

I believe that's called the Selection Show.

[Marquette Fan]

Is there one more top 16 Reveal?

March 4th at halftime of a UCONN game.  It is the day after Marquette's last regular season game at Providence.

[Warrior1969]

I believe that's called the Selection Show.

wrong

[brewcity77]

So there's two more reveals 

Confirmed here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-women/article/2019-02-11/lets-break-down-ncaa-committees-first-top-16-rankings%3famp

[SaveOD238]

Looks like the Lady Golden Eagles scored another easy win today against Xavier.  No Davenport in the box score...does anyone know her status?

[oldwarrior81]

Looks like the Lady Golden Eagles scored another easy win today against Xavier.  No Davenport in the box score...does anyone know her status?

Davenport out for the season with the left knee injury suffered on Friday.

[Marquette Fan]

Looks like the Lady Golden Eagles scored another easy win today against Xavier.  No Davenport in the box score...does anyone know her status?

Xavier is by far the worst team in the BE with only 2 wins in conference play and the next worst team has 6 conference wins.  So it was a nice easy win as it should have been.

Now to try to regroup and find a way to play without Davenport .  She was their only real post threat and they don't really have anyone to replace her.  And I just feel sick to my stomach for her that her great career had to end early with this injury. 

MU celebrated with the BE trophy afterwards as they clinched at least a tie for the BE title for the 2nd year in a row and have clinched the top seed in the BET (they have a tiebreaker over DePaul who is the only team who can tie them).  One more win or one more DePaul loss clinches an outright title.  But they really need to win out if they want to still have a shot at hosting at the Al in the NCAA Tournament.  And winning out still may not be enough to host at this point.

Unfortunately they have the toughest road trip when it comes to travel to finish the season - in Omaha on Friday night and a quick turnaround in Providence on Sunday.

[Warrior1969]

What has happened to Bloctons scoring inside?  Nice she can hit a 3 but she is going to have to pick up inside going forward?

[Marquette Fan]

What has happened to Bloctons scoring inside?  Nice she can hit a 3 but she is going to have to pick up inside going forward?

I think Blockton can still score on the inside but it wasn't really needed with Davenport down low.  Blockton is a much more potent threat on the inside than Lauren VanKleunen or Altia Anderson is going to be.  But the outside shot will be needed also as I think Marquette is going to see a lot of zone from here on out.

I'm sure they'll be working hard on new strategies with Davenport out.  Can we all send a bunch of cheeseburgers to bulk up LVK ?