Game Summary
The date was February 9, but the atmosphere inside the Bradley Center was more like a post season march madness tourney. The Demon Deacons of Wake Forest came into the Bradley Center coming off of a win over N.C. State on Feb. 6 and looked to break MU’s 27 home game winning streak. The top match up of the day was between one of the ACC’s prolific players of the year in Josh Howard v. C-USA’s leading scorer in Dwyane Wade. Marquette jumped into the lead to start the game and never surrendered it until the second half. The first half was very close all throughout despite multiple calls by the refs who may have been sent to Milwaukee by the ACC in an effort to slow down the Golden Eagles. Going into half time, the Deacons pulled to within 3 points of MU, 29-26. Entering into the second half, a Taron Downy and Josh Howard spurt pulled the Deacons ahead by 3, 31-29 but that would be their only lead of the game before stifling defense took over which resulted in a scoring run after scoring run by Marquette which kept them atop the leader board. A memorable 8-0 run by MU was capped off by a breakaway slam-dunk by Dwyane Wade increasing the lead to 53-43. The dunk was also Wade’s 1000th career point as a Golden Eagle. The Deacons kept on the heels of MU in the second half pulling to within 2 after a 7-0 run with Josh Howard scoring 14 of his 20 points in the second half. MU answered back with consecutive scores by Scott Merritt and another Dwyane Wade slam dunk. A final MU scoring run followed by finishing shots from the charity stripe were all that the eagles needed to defeat Wake Forest 68-61. Player of the game honors go to Dwyane Wade, Scott Merritt, and Robert Jackson who all combined for 53 points, with Wade also scoring his 1000th MU career point. Marquette’s inside game was where it was today. The Goat award goes to Wake Forest center Eric Williams who fouled out with 2:06 left to play and 4 points for the day. He found himself in foul trouble the whole day and also was called for 2 fouls within 20 seconds. Runner up goat goes to the questionable refereeing which consisted of many missed calls and even more questionable make-up calls. Wake Forest plays Duke next on Feb. 13th. Marquette heads down I-94 to Chicago to face the DePaul Blue Demons on Wednesday Feb. 12th @ 8:00pm. The game will also be the rematch of Drake v. Travis Diener(s).
stats via ESPN.com (AP)
