South Carolina 93, Marquette 73: Gamecocks clamp down
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Great defense beats great offense. It's a cliché regardless of sport, but on Friday night at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena it certainly rang true.
South Carolina, which boasts one of the best defenses in the country, smothered Marquette in the second half on the way to a 93-73 victory — the Gamecocks' first in the NCAA Tournament since 1973 — in front of a raucous, partisan crowd about 100 miles from the South Carolina campus.
The problem for the Golden Eagles was simple; it's impossible to score when you don't have the ball.
Marquette (19-13) committed a season-high 18 turnovers, including 12 in the second half. Overall, those giveaways led to 25 South Carolina points.
When they weren't giving possession away in the second half, the Golden Eagles failed to get any separation or consistent open shots against South Carolina's aggressive man-to-man. They shot just 3 of 12 from three-point range after halftime, missing their last six three-point tries. Over the final 10 minutes 57 seconds the Golden Eagles were outscored, 29-10, as they made 3 of their last 12 shots, including a string of seven straight misses and over seven minutes without a field goal that allowed the Gamecocks to turn a close game into a blowout.
"I thought over the course of the game their physicality wore us down," Marquette head coach Steve Wojciechowski said. "And you have to be incredibly mentally and physically tough in order to win any NCAA game but in particular against South Carolina tonight and we weren't able to sustain that for as long as we needed to, and that's when they were able to create separation. ...
"I think when you play a team that pressures like they do, at times the effects of that pressure don't show itself until late. And we're not going to win a game where we give a team 25 points off of turnovers. That's just not how we're made up."
The Gamecocks (23-10), led by SEC player of the year Sindarius Thornwell's 29 points, ripped through the Golden Eagles' defense — an Achilles heel for Marquette throughout this season. Considering South Carolina had not shown itself to be a great jump-shooting team, Marquette entered the night planning to try to gum up the paint. That didn't come to fruition, though, the Gamecocks relentlessly attacked the Golden Eagles' core to the tune of 42 points in the paint.
BOX SCORE: South Carolina 93, Marquette 73
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"When they got going they got going," said graduate transfer Katin Reinhardt, who scored seven points in his final game. "They were the better team tonight. In the tournament, the better team wins."
Marquette's second-half struggles began almost immediately after the teams returned from intermission. With Marquette clinging to a 40-39 lead, South Carolina's first points after halftime — and first lead of the game — came as Golden Eagles senior center Luke Fischer reached for a rebound and inadvertently helpng to tip the ball in the basket for the Gamecocks. The Golden Eagles then committed back-to-back turnovers, with freshman Markus Howard, who had six on the night, committing the first and redshirt junior Andrew Rowsey dumping off a pass to freshman Sam Hauser who wasn't looking, leading to an easy transition bucket for the Gamecocks.
"I won't say their size affected us," said Howard, who had 13 points. "(It was) more so our decision-making, me in particular. There were a lot of turnovers I had that I shouldn't have had, but it's just something I'll have to work on in the offseason and get better for next year."
That's not when things slipped away from the Golden Eagles, though. They bounced right back with baskets on four successive possessions to retake the lead at 49-44.
Just over two minutes later, though, Marquette was back in a six-point hole due in large part to three quick turnovers, including a controversial backcourt violation, a shot clock violation and a giveaway by Reinhardt. South Carolina scored seven points off those turnovers alone as part of a 13-0 run that looked like it would be enough to put the game away.
"Just to stay consistent on defense," Thornwell said of South Carolina's halftime discussions. "Just keep grinding, keep staying on them, make them take tough shots and on offense keep attacking. And we stayed with it, stayed with the game plan, and that's really it."
Yet again, though, the Golden Eagles battled back.
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Senior Jajuan Johnson led the charge, converting a layup through a foul then burying a corner three-pointer to ignite Marquette's offense. Fischer cleaned up a missed layup by Johnson with 11:47 left to pull Marquette within two.
"I saw them make a run and I saw we needed some scoring," said Johnson, who finished with 16 points on the night and 1,013 for his career at Marquette, becoming the 47th player to score 1,000 or more points in a Marquette uniform. "I feel like I was playing too cool almost. I had to pick up my energy on both ends, defense and offense, to try to get a win."
Less than a minute later, Rowsey got fouled shooting a three-pointer and made three free throws to cut the margin to one. That was as close as Marquette would get as turnovers continued to pile up and the offense ran cold. Down the stretch the Golden Eagles failed to get stops, allowing the Gamecocks to make their final seven shots.
"I would say they're a really physical team," Fischer said. "They were able to get to the basket. We weren't always up on our ball-screen coverage. We had some miscommunication plays and they capitalized on all that stuff.
With every missed opportunity, the large segment of Gamecocks fans in the stands grew louder. They sensed they might be witnessing history in their own backyard as South Carolina got closer and closer to its first NCAA Tournament win in 44 years. Multiple Marquette players said it felt like an away game instead of one held on a neutral court, but not one of them pointed to that as an excuse.
"One of the things about playing in this tournament is for us, if they said we needed to play in Timbuktu and they were only bringing their home fans, we'd be fine with that.," Wojciechowski said. "They have great fans and they showed out tonight. But that's not something that we worried about nor should we be worried about."
Marquette's letdown came following a solid start to the game.
After the two teams scuffled through the first few possessions of the game, Rowsey opened the scoring with a bang. For the 14th time since Big East play began — and he would add another before the game was done — he pump faked to draw Chris Silva in the air and drew a foul while shooting a three-pointer. He hoisted that trey with his left hand and it found the bottom of the net, resulting in a four-point play.
That triple jump-started an 8-0 game-opening run for the Golden Eagles, which was aided by the Gamecocks starting 0 of 6 from the field and set the tone for a first half in which Marquette would not trail.
After absorbing a South Carolina run that brought the Gamecocks within three midway through the period, Marquette quickly went on one of its own. In a span of 78 seconds, Reinhardt made a pair of free throws, Fischer added a short jumper and Reinhardt buried a three-pointer to give the Golden Eagles their largest lead of the game at 26-16 with 9:23 until halftime.
That's when things got a lot more interesting.
Following a timeout called by Gamecocks head coach Frank Martin, his players dug in with more intensity on defense. Marquette had already made 5 of its 8 three-point attempts and picked apart the defense for multiple high-quality looks.
Heading into the half, those became harder to come by, a theme that continued for the rest of the night. Buoyed by their defense, the Gamecocks rattled off a 10-2 run out of that timeout. Hauser responded with back-to-back three-pointers — split up by a steal by Johnson.
From there, South Carolina slowly whittled the margin down as Marquette struggled with fouls. By halftime, four Marquette players — Hauser, Fischer, Rowsey and center Matt Heldt — had each collected a pair of fouls.
As close as things got, though, the Golden Eagles didn't give up the lead. Thornwell, who scored 10 points in the first half, had a look at a go-ahead three before the buzzer, but it bounced harmlessly off the iron and Johnson stole the rebound away from Duane Notice.
Hauser, Johnson and Rowsey combined to make six of Marquette's 8 first-half three-pointers on 16 attempts, with Hauser and Rowsey leading the Golden Eagles with eight points at halftime.
After the break, though, is when wheels fell off, ending Marquette's season and setting up a date between South Carolina and Duke on Sunday.
When the Golden Eagles returned to their locker room following the loss, Johnson — not usually the outspoken type — had something to say to his teammates. He told them to keep their heads up and even though his time was done, there was still work for the returning players to do.
In his mind, this trip to the NCAA Tournament, albeit short, should be the just the start of what is to come.
"This is my last game," Johnson said. "I feel like I'm an older guy and I'm a Marquette Eagle for life now. So I talked to my young guys and told them don't get their head down. This is what they want. This is part of basketball, this is what you want to experience, getting to the tournament. ... For them to experience this (while they're) young, just them tasting it, I feel like it's going to help them in the long run."