No. 12 Creighton slips past shorthanded No. 5 Marquette

Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz reacts to the Bluejays’ 89-75 win over the Golden Eagles and discusses how many Big East teams can make a deep tournament run.

Video Transcript

JASON FITZ: Marquette was shorthanded and no match for Creighton in the Big East Battle of the Day, as the number 12 Blue Jays take down the number five Golden Eagles in a game, frankly, that was closer than the final score indicated for much of the second half. Remember, Marquette was shorthanded in this match-up. And we knew that that was going to play into how this game played out. Without Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro, it was reasonable to assume that Marquette would struggle. But in the second half particularly, there was about a six-minute span where Creighton simply couldn't hit anything. And because of that, this game stayed closer than we expected.

Then, in the last couple of minutes, as Creighton finally got hot again, you could see the dominance coming through. And when you look at the final score, you see the dominance in the numbers. Creighton absolutely dominated when it came to assists. They dominated on the glass. They dominated in shooting percentage. They dominated particularly in 3-point shooting percentage. And they had the most dominant player on the floor with Baylor Scheierman absolutely going off, 26 points in this match-up, including shooting 50% from 3.

There was no answer for Marquette. Creighton did a beautiful job of moving the ball around the perimeter. Marquette simply couldn't keep up with it. And we're reminded, as we get in to Big East Tournament time, how important these matchups are. We understand Big East seeding. But I'll also point to NCAA seeding and remind everybody that, as much as we focused on Connecticut out of the Big East, and rightfully so, these are two other teams that are saying, hey, we have a shot at making noise in the tournament as well. We love to make the Big East about one. But it feels like right now, as you look at the tournament, with Marquette and with Creighton and with the way they played today, you have to wonder if there aren't three teams in the conference that could make a deep run in March.

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