Pressure builds on the bubble

Game is crucial for MU, Xavier

With a logjam of teams hovering around the .500 mark in the middle of the standings, the Big East is a conference full of desperate teams. Wednesday’s matchup between Marquette and Xavier at the Cintas Center in Cincinnati arguably features the two teams in most dire need of a victory.

The Musketeers (1811, 8-8 Big East) enter the game on a five-game skid, the program’s longest since 1982, and are trying to find a way to stop the bleeding. Going on the road and pushing that slide to six on Xavier’s senior day would do wonders for the Golden Eagles (17-11, 8-8), who face another critical test as they attempt to end the league’s secondlongest NCAA Tournament drought after missing the postseason the past three seasons.

“The fact of the matter is going back a month every game that we’ve played in has carried tremendous magnitude,” Marquette coach Steve Wojciechowski said Tuesday. “This is not new for our team. We have to try to stick together, follow the game

plan, keep our turnovers low, have a high assist number and take away some of the strengths the other team does.”

Though Marquette won the previous meeting between these two squads, 83-61, less than two weeks ago, there’s only so much the Golden Eagles can realistically glean from that game film. That’s because Xavier junior guard Trevon Bluiett, the fourth-leading scorer in the Big East at 17.9 points per game, didn’t participate because of a right ankle injury.

Without Bluiett, the Musketeers aren’t close to being themselves, which means the Golden Eagles can’t look back to their 22-point win Feb. 18 and be satisfied. It’s a point that Wojciechowski and his staff have brought up multiple times.

“Obviously he’s one of the best players in the United States, he’s an allleague guy in our conference and on the offensive end I’m not sure there’s a more dynamic player in our league,” Wojciechowski said. “We’ve certainly made it clear to our guys that a team with Trevon Bluiett on it is a team that’s capable of beating anyone in the country. He’s as good of a player as we’ve played against all year. We certainly talked to our guys about that and I think they’re well aware of that.”

This week isn’t the first time the Golden Eagles are hearing about the threat Bluiett poses. Not knowing whether he would play at the BMO Harris Bradley Center, Marquette prepared as if he would.

That meant watching film on his tendencies and practicing defending against him in the sets Xavier has shown. Often, the role of mimicking some of the better players on opposing teams falls to sophomore guard Sacar Anim, who is redshirting this season. As Anim has improved his strength and skill, with his ball-handling and shooting being major points of emphasis, he has been able to better approximate opposing players.

“I think it’s an asset for our team to have somebody we can put on the scout team, who, again he’s not Trevon Bluiett, but from an athletic standpoint, from a skill standpoint, really helps us get better,” Wojciechowski said.

As influential as Bluiett may prove to be, Marquette’s fate Wednesday and beyond likely will come down to the Golden Eagles getting the most out of the nine scholarship players on their roster.

The three games since Marquette’s bye week have been a microcosm of the season. Everyone has made notable contributions in some games, but in others they’ve either regressed or essentially disappeared.

It’s something Marquette is going to have to figure out as it enters the final two games of the regular season, which are pivotal to their Big East tournament seeding and NCAA Tournament hopes.

“We’ve had some inconsistency of play,” Wojciechowski said. “I think over the course of the year everybody on our roster has contributed in a big way to some important wins. I don’t think we’ve yet had a game where everybody’s played really well.

“At this time of year against the quality and caliber of the opponents we’re playing against we need a collective effort where guys don’t have to be superheroes, but they’ve got to play pretty close to their potential to beat the really good teams that we’re playing and the caliber of games that we’re playing in.”