Game Summary
Everyone knows that Marquette v. Cinci games are always huge, they have been for the past few years. This year, it was more apparent than ever that MU would be gunning for the bearcats after splitting the season series last year with Cincinnati walking away with the conference championship. So far in the season, MU has gone 4-3 on the road, and faced an even tougher opponent in Cincinnati at the shoemaker center, where the bearcats have only lost 3 times to C-USA opponents in 64 games. The golden eagles were able to score first which in turn, they never gave up allowing Cincinnati only to get to within 5pts. half way through the first half. The game was definitely going to be a physical battle as Dwyane Wade was forced to take an early break after committing two fouls close to two and a half minutes into the game. The score at half-time was 30-39 with the second half promising to be better, for MU that is. Building up a lead as high as 22 points in the second half, the eagles were riding comfortably until Cincinnati’s Tony Bobbitt started to mount a small comeback for the bearcats. With MU up by 10 points and 2:30 to go, Bobbitt hit a 3 pointer bringing the ball down court, on the next possession, a MU miss turned into another Bobbitt jumper resurrecting the bearcats as well as most of the shoemaker center dressed in red and black bringing the score to 75-67. Their little resurrection was short lived however as MU looked to hold on to the ball and wind down the clock when 86% free-throw shooter Travis Diener was fouled and sent to the charity stripe and sank both shots. Towards the end, all Cincinnati could do was stretch out what would be less than a minute on the game clock to nearly 10 minutes in real time. All throughout the game, MU went to its big presence down low in Robert Jackson. Jackson went 6-13 for the day, leading the eagles in scoring with 21 points and going 9 for 9 from the free throw line. Jackson’s offensive prowess and awareness this game has earned his vote for player of the game. Today’s goat for the first time isn’t any of the players. As experienced by many local viewers to the game on MU campus, an emergency broadcast system test was conducted on the ESPN channel about 5 minutes into the game. Viewers were watching Cincinnati bring the ball up court when the game was suddenly interrupted only to find the game with players sprawling all over the floor on the MU side of the floor. The next game for the eagles is at home on Feb. 5th @ home on the Al McGuire court v. the St. Louis Bilikens. Game time is at 8:00 pm and is also televised on local Fox Sports Net, be sure to check it out if you aren’t able to make it out to the Bradley Center
