Murray State 83, Marquette 64: The Golden Eagles fell flat in their NCAA Tournament opener

HARTFORD, Conn. – Marquette stumbled down the stretch of the season, and in the end the Golden Eagles fell flat on their face.

The fifth-seeded Golden Eagles were embarrassed by 12th-seeded Murray State, 83-64, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday at the XL Center.

MU (24-10), ranked as high as No. 9 in the polls in February, lost six of its last seven games. The Racers (28-4) have won 12 straight and will face fourth-seeded Florida State in the second round Saturday.

Golden Eagles head coach Steve Wojciechowski is 0-2 in the NCAA Tournament in five seasons at the school. MU lost to South Carolina, 93-73, in 2017.

Little that went right for the Golden Eagles against the Racers.

BOX SCORE:Murray State 83, Marquette 64

MU had no answers for Murray State guard Ja Morant, who sliced and diced the Golden Eagles defense for 17 points, 16 assists and 11 rebounds. His was the first triple-double in the NCAA Tournament since Draymond Green of Michigan State in 2012.

"Ja Morant makes a lot of plans look bad," Wojciechowski said. "I've been in this for a while. He's as good as any guard that I have coached against or played against.

"And I've coached against and played against some outstanding ones."

MU's own outstanding guard, junior Markus Howard, looked at the start of the game like he was ready to go highlight-for-highlight against Morant. 

Howard had 16 points in the first half on 6-for-14 shooting. But all that momentum came to a halt when Howard picked up his second foul at the 4:40 mark and sat out the rest of the first half.

The Racers took a 42-35 lead at halftime. The Golden Eagles would never get any closer. Murray State scored the first seven points of the second half, and MU completely fell apart.

"They got a lot of momentum on offense," Howard said. "They had some big plays that they made. It kind of gave them some juice. 

"Once they get on runs like that, they're a hard team to stop. They got on a little bit of a run and we weren't able to respond."

Morant picked the Golden Eagles apart, adding more highlights to a season full of them. He dropped no-look passes to teammates, hit both of his three-point attempts and threw down a two-handed dunk on MU freshman Joey Hauser.

"I think it's his vision that separates him," said MU junior guard Sacar Anim, who started as the primary defender on Morant. "He's a really great player, but he really surprised me with his passing ability.

"I knew he was a good passer; he averages 10 assists for a reason. But he's even better in person."

Morant always drew a swarm of MU help defenders. 

"We were just trying to pack the paint," Anim said. "We wanted to force him to pass out, then try to recover to those guys as quickly as possible.

"We were having too many guys help, honestly. We had almost five guys on him at times. We all ran into the paint, some of us should have stayed out and covered the shooters." 

MU could never solve Morant.

"You can't speed him up," Wojciechowski said. "You can run two people at him. You can switch, try to get the ball out of his hands.

"There's nothing that we found that could speed him up or shake his decision making."

Murray State had no trouble shutting down MU. The Golden Eagles shot 10 for 39 in the second half, including 3 for 16 on three-pointers.

Howard finished with 26 points but was 4 for 14 from behind the arc. Junior forward Sam Hauser was the only other MU player in double figures with 16 points.

"We wanted to make them a one-on-one team," Racers coach Matt McMahon said. "They had six assists and 12 turnovers. We were 23 assists to 12 turnovers."

It was another ugly loss to end an MU season that fell apart down the stretch. The late-season slide cost the Golden Eagles a chance at the Big East crown. The program hasn't won a game in the NCAA Tournament since 2013.

"Certainly we didn't play as well at the end of the season as we did for most of it," Wojciechowski said. "We've got to really examine that and figure out why.

"When you hit a tough patch, usually it's not one thing. It's a combination of things. So we'll have to study that and figure out what happened."