Coming into the Bradley Center, the pirates of East Carolina were thinking they could do a repeat performance of their shocking defeat of the eagles back on December 30 seeing as they are the only team so far in the conference to beat MU. But they probably thought wrong as Marquette held a 26 game winning streak prior to Wednesday night’s game. From the start, Marquette controlled pretty much every aspect of the game. The pirates were never really close to even sniffing the lead and failed on their part to even coming close to a competitive game, falling behind as far as 38 points in the second half. Dwyane Wade led the way as he as well as the rest of the eagles trampled all over the pirates. Going 10-for-15 and scoring 25 points, Wade led the eagles in scoring also while getting 4 steals and one block which all resulted in MU scores. His highlight of the evening came off of an amazing alley-oop from Scott Meritt that was worthy of a spot on Sports Center’s top plays of the day. It was a really good day for the eagles as they not only payed back their first conference loss, but made the pirates walk their own plank. The game also saw exuberant chants for freshmen Tony Gries & Jared Sichting. This is hopefully the first of many times that the crowd will chant “We Want Sichting.” All players who were active on the team played which is always good seeing the whole team in on the action. Player of the game honors go to Dwyane Wade, the conference’s leading scorer and member of Sports Center’s top plays of the day list. Goat of the game award goes to Moussa Badiane, the tall black French guy who left the game two minutes into the game with a cut under his chin and returned 5 minutes later with a large and very noticeable bandage upon the minor wound. The next game for the eagles is away on Saturday, February 1 v. Cincinnati, one of the biggest rivals for the eagles. Be sure to check out the game as it is televised on ESPN @ 3:00 pm. CT.
