Marquette Falls to Syracuse at Carrier Dome

By Marquette Tickets fan J.B. | Posted Wednesday, January 11

The Marquette Golden Eagles made a valiant effort Saturday against top ranked Syracuse, but fell short 73-66. They just couldn’t overcome their worst first-half performance of the season. The loss is their second in a row, after falling to Georgetown just a few days prior.

Marquette’s first twenty minutes of play at the Carrier Dome could be summed up in a single word: Terrible. The team was ice cold, missing eight straight from the field. When shooting from the line, the team tossed up five consecutive bricks. Vander Blue was responsible for four of those five. Blue’s completion percentage from the line is just over 62%. Darius Johnson-Odom and Jae Crowder also failed to step up. Johnson-Odom whiffed on an easy break-away dunk, while Crowder was responsible for just one point in the first half. Syracuse would go on to lead by as much as twenty-three points with just over two minutes to play in the first half. At one point, Syracuse scored nineteen unanswered points and forced Marquette to give up three offensive fouls.

The second half was a different story. Crowder scored fourteen points while Odom put up eleven. With five minutes remaining in the game, the Golden Eagles were two points shy of tying the game. But the Orangemen were not going to go down easy. The Marquette rally was shot down when Syracuse scored seven straight unanswered points, putting a Marquette win just out of reach.