Mar 11, 2026; New York, NY, USA; Xavier Musketeers guard Isaiah Walker (7) goes for the ball against Marquette Golden Eagles during the second half at Madison Square Garden.Andrew FleckThu, March 12, 2026 at 2:08 AM UTC·4 min readAs Xavier developed their first half advantage out to 29-19 with just under 10 minutes left in the first half at Madison Square Garden I thought to myself, “ah, yes, the pattern of what happened in the first half of the visit to Xavier in the regular season is repeating itself, just a little bit slower.” In that case, it was 28-10 Xavier about eight minutes in, and Marquette was pretty much dead in the water from there on out.
And then — and I swear this is true — powered by seven first half points from Michael Phillips, Marquette rallied back, took a three point lead on the Musketeers, and ultimately settled for a 38-all tie at intermission. Okay, that’s fine, I would have signed up for that halftime situation before the game started, that’s fine by me. Don’t like the trajectory of how we ended up there, but any landing you walk away from is a good landing, right?
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBack-to-back dunks from Royce Parham got Marquette back up three early in the second half, then the same for two free throws from Damarius Owens with 16:16 to play. Was this a Big East tournament classic starting to simmer?
No, dearest gentle reader, it was not.
Marquette got a bit sloppy for about four minutes of action, and BAM: 11-0 Xavier run, Musketeers up eight. A runout layup from Tre Carroll made it a 10 point game with 11:39 left, and essentially, Marquette had wasted the middle 20 minutes of the game, ending up right back where they started.
But they didn’t roll over and die as we’ve seen happen more than once in the Big East tournament. They answered with seven straight of their own, capped by another three from Phillips, to get within three. Down nine, down three, down five, down two, down six, down three, down five as the clock wound under three minutes left….
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement….. and Chase Ross splashed a three and Nigel James followed with two free throws. Tied at 80, 1:56 left. Anyone’s game. Huh.
Offensive foul on XU’s Roddie Anderson, and the door cracks open for the Golden Eagles… just long enough for Xavier to go on a 6-1 burst until there was 14 seconds left. The backbreaker in there? Nigel James bottling up Anderson into a behind the back turnover at midcourt with less than a minute to go that sent the ball skittering away and set up a fast break opportunity for the Golden Eagles to take the lead…. and James’ quick toss pass to Adrien Stevens was tipped by a retreating Anderson off the backboard and safely into Xavier hands.
Can you imagine if Anderson had tipped it up and in? My goodness.
Carroll scores on the other end, James misses a layup in a cartoonishly horrible manner with 17 seconds left, Marquette fouls to extend the game and then XU makes two very weird decisions. They’re up five, and Jovan Milicevic decides that right now is a very important time to exert physicality on James as he drives. And-1, he makes the freebie, two point game, 12 seconds left. If Isaiah Walker misses these free throws, it’s a very bad time for Xavier all of a sudden.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBut he didn’t, James gets a quick layup, Marquette fouls down two with three seconds left, mathematically this is not over, and Malik Messina-Moore misses the second freebie. This is not the weird decision. The weird decision is Carroll fouling Royce Parham on the rebound while Xavier is up 89-86. Marquette is now a Parham make and a Parham intentional miss and an offensive putback away from forcing overtime. I get the idea of making the multi-part thing happen because it’s complicated…. but bro, just let Marquette heave a 60 footer to tie.
Parham executed the intentional miss about as well as you could want him to in terms of how it came off the rim, but Xavier cluttered up the rebounding situation, technically Nigel James got the offensive rebound as he dove out of bounds and threw it back at the rim.
Marquette fell behind by 10 points on two different occasions in this game, and they still had a chance to win it in the final two minutes. They shouldn’t have been there, but they were, and that’s nice, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned about this particular iteration of Marquette basketball, it’s that they’re probably not going to figure out how to nail down the closing details in a close game.
Oh well.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSeason’s over, as Marquette is eliminated from the Big East tournament in the first round with the 89-87 loss. Marquette is 12-20, which is the fewest wins for the program since 1991 and one short of tying 1963-64 for the most losses in program history. It ties 1947-48 for the 10th worst winning percentage in program history, and it’s the worst winning percentage by a Marquette team since Bob Dukiet put up a .357 in 1987-88.
Offseason evil. Must be destroyed.
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