After the “joy” of its first Big East victory, Marquette returns to action against Villanova Saturday in Milwaukee, Wisc.
The Golden Eagles (6-10, 1-4 Big East) ended a six-game losing streak with a 66-65 win over Xavier on Wednesday. Marquette led by 13 in the second half and outscored the Musketeers 38-14 in the paint, but still had to hold on as a last-second Xavier shot went off target.
“It’s just a lot of joy,” said Marquette sophomore Royce Parham, who had 14 points in the win. “We haven’t won in like a month or so. It was great to get one under our belt. We know that all these games are close and we know we can win all these games.”
On the flip side of that emotion is Villanova (12-3, 3-1). The Wildcats’ five-game win streak was snapped by a Creighton team which shot 66.7% from the floor in the second half on Wednesday.
Villanova coach Ralph Willard called his team’s defense ‘abysmal’ after the game.
“It was nothing to do with offense,” Willard said. “It was totally just abysmal defense.”
“We’ve got to get better,” agreed Villanova guard Tyler Perkins. “We’ve got to clean it up and see what we did wrong – too many offensive rebounds – work on our
