The school from the Big East wants to make fancy passes and show off its perimeter skills; the Pac-10 school is looking for a half-court, muscle match-up.
Yeah, you read that right.
Sixth-seeded Marquette plays third-seeded Stanford on Saturday in a second-round NCAA South regional game at the Honda Center. It’s the kind of game where you throw the ball up and the preconceptions out.
The Big East all but invented rugged basketball and once experimented with a six-foul rule.
Some Big East teams still want to mug you, but not necessarily Marquette (25-9), which relied mainly on three guards and speed to get this far in the season and the tournament.
Stanford (27-7) represents the once passively perceived Pac-10 that now has grown Popeye arms.
Friday’s most-asked question — “How is the Marquette front court going to stop Stanford’s Lopez twins? — was the right question.
Brook and Robin Lopez are 7-foot sophomores going against a roster that boasts one man taller than 6-9.
That Marquette player is 6-10 sophomore Ousmane Barro. Figuring out how to slow the Lopez twins was Marquette’s top pregame priority.
Coach Tom Crean’s team faced a lot of good big men in the Big East. There was 7-2 Georgetown center Roy Hibbert, Louisville’s 6-10 David Padgett and Hasheem Thabeet, Connecticut’s 7-3 skyscraper.
“The Lopez brothers, I mean, that’s different,” Barro said. “We’ve never seen two 7-footers in the game, playing at the same time. There’s two of them, that makes it harder.”
Barro won’t be alone out there. Marquette plans to use bodies like spike strips. The Golden Eagles can deploy the 6-8 tandem of Dwight Burke and Lawrence Blackledge, mix in Lazar Hayward, who is 6-6, and 6-9 forward Dan Fitzgerald.
Burke is used to giving away inches and pounds.
After Barro fouled out in 16 minutes trying to guard Georgetown’s Hibbert this season, Burke had to play most of the second half.
Hibbert had 21 points in a two-point overtime victory March 1.
“But I thought he had to earn every one of those points,” Crean said.
Fitzgerald said Marquette needs everybody’s help.
“We’re a deep team, and everything’s collective with us,” Fitzgerald said. “We have a ton of guys who can play multiple positions. … The thing is them having to guard us. That’s the mismatch on offense.”
Barro said the only good news, in terms of his game-day assignment, is that he definitely can tell the difference between Brook and Robin.
“He has the hair,” Barro said of Robin.
