All through its remarkable season, Marquette displayed tenacity and resiliency and, most of all, poise.
That drove it to a win at Louisville after it trailed by 19, drove it to a victory over No. 1 Kentucky in the Midwest Regional final, drove it all the way to the Final Four and a national semifinal game against Kansas.
Those intangible traits came to be as much a part of this team as its physical skills, but on its game’s biggest stage Saturday, those qualities melted away. The Jayhawks rocked the Golden Eagles early, then continued to apply pressure and finally ran off to an easy 94-61 victory.
Marquette, suffering the third-worst blowout in NCAA semifinal history, was just never in this game, not after Kansas broke a 12-12 tie with a lethal 23-4 run that took just over six minutes. It put up another 18-4 run at the end of the first half, opened the second half with a run of 18-4 and ultimately built a lead that peaked at 43 with 14:51 still remaining.
“They made us look pretty bad,” Golden Eagles guard Travis Diener said.
“You try not to get down on yourself,” said his teammate, forward Todd Townsend. “We’re a team full of pride, and you still want to play the full 40 minutes. But sitting on the bench, it was hard to watch. I was definitely stunned.”
The Jayhawks (30-7) jarred the Golden Eagles (27-6) with their quickness, which they used to constantly beat them up the court or down the baseline for easy layups. Eight times in the first half, which is when the game was settled, it took Kansas 10 seconds or less to score after a Marquette basket or miss, and once, off a turnover by Diener, it took only two.
“You can’t prepare for how quick they are,” Golden Eagles coach Tom Crean said.
“We like to send four to the glass and keep one back,” Townsend said. “So they had two-on-ones, three-on-ones, four-on-ones all night long.”
“But a couple possessions,” said Jayhawks forward Keith Langford, “they celebrated a score and we were at the other end scoring easy baskets. We kept pushing it.”
And Kansas stunned Marquette with its relentless defense, which it used to leave the Golden Eagles’ offense in the throes of confusion, chaos or inertia. Marquette’s Dwyane Wade (19 points) and Robert Jackson (15) were a combined 13-of-27 from the field while scoring their 34, but their teammates went a miserable 10-of-47 while scoring just 27.
Diener, who was shooting 50 percent in the tourney with only four turnovers, went 1-of-11 while turning the ball over eight times. Steve Novak, who had gone 14-of-20 on his threes in the tourney, went 0-of-5 on his threes and 1-of-7 overall.
The Golden Eagles, who in the tourney were shooting 52.3 percent overall and 56.9 percent on their threes, went 23-of-74 overall (31.1 percent) and 3-of-16 on their threes (18.8 percent).
“We wanted to play defense in a frenzy,” Jayhawks coach Roy Williams said.
“We didn’t get into a flow on offense,” Wade said. “We were calling plays, and guys were out of position. Kansas did a great job of taking us out of our offense and making us take tough shots.”
And the Jayhawks stunned the Golden Eagles with their poise and precision, which they used to leave them looking uncomfortable and disoriented under the spotlight’s harsh glare.
Marquette missed simple defensive assignments and often left Kansas looking as if it were involved in nothing more strenuous than a layup line.
“We didn’t stop the ball, we didn’t stop their inside game, we didn’t communicate on defense for some reason,” Crean said.
“Coach always says attack and be patient,” said Langford, who scored a game-high 23 points. “But I found some gaps and my teammates found some gaps. I don’t know what happened. Watching on film, they played good help defense. But we attacked them early and got them back on their heels.”
Said Williams: “Every coach has big-time dreams. We’re going to work as hard as we can to make those dreams come true.”
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Championship game Kansas vs. Syracuse, 8:22 p.m. Monday, WBBM-Ch. 2
