Marquette gets first Sweet 16 since ’13
INDIANAPOLIS — Marquette showed resolve in critical moments and avoided another early exit from March Madness.
Tyler Kolek had 21 points and 11 assists, and David Joplin made two free throws with 7.4 seconds left to help the Golden Eagles finally put away Colorado 81-77 on Sunday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
In their third season under coach Shaka Smart, the second-seeded Golden Eagles (27-9) reached the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2013 by outlasting the 10th-seeded Buffaloes (26-11).
A year earlier, Marquette was also seeded No. 2 but was eliminated in the second round by No. 10 seed Michigan State. The Golden Eagles put that disappointment behind them by responding to every big shot by the Buffs with one of their own.
“We’ve had some adversity,” Smart said, “but the guys have never wavered in terms of their belief in our playing and our way and they stayed connected with one another . ... And I think that won us the game today.”
Kam Jones scored 18 points and Joplin finished with 14 for Marquette, which shot 61.8 percent from the field but still couldn’t shake Colorado until the closing seconds. Chase Ross made a tiebreaking 3-pointer off a pass from Kolek with 2:53 left and finished with 12 points on 5 of 6 shooting.
“Coach always preaches ‘eff it’ shooting, so when I got it, it was ‘eff it’ and it went in,” Ross said.
KJ Simpson scored 20 points and Tristan da Silva had 17 for Colorado, which trailed by 11 at halftime but rallied to take a 55-54 lead just over five minutes into the second half. Kolek put the Golden Eagles back on top with a short jumper and Marquette never trailed again, but Colorado tied it twice, the last time on a 3-pointer by da Silva with 4:02 remaining.
“We all just had the mentality of ‘I’m not giving up.’ We’ve done that throughout the whole year,” Simpson said. “That was just the mindset, that we can go out there and we can still come back and never give up and never give up on the effort. We did that, we just came up short.”
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