Marquette Passes the Torch After Solid Season

The clock read 0:00, and as much as Buzz Williams yelled, kicked, screamed, and fought it, Maurice Acker wasn’t going to get four free throws.

In a two minute span that seemed more like 20 minutes, Marquette went from being up four to down four as they fell to the Missouri Tigers 83-79 in Boise.

The game brought an end to much more than a second round game in the NCAA Tournament, but rather an era at Marquette University and the Golden Eagles program that will not be forgotten for some time.

I’ve only had the privilege of being a Marquette Golden Eagles fan for about a calendar year, but the joy and fantastic memories they have brought to me as a sports fan is insurmountable.

The Golden Eagles’ season started in a conference room in Bloomington, Ind. on April 3 where Tom Crean had just accepted the job as Indiana’s next head basketball coach.

Say what you will—that the move was warranted or that he left his seniors out to dry—no matter how you look at it, his leaving hit the Marquette community where it hurt.

Fast forward one week to Apr. 8 and Buzz Williams had taken over the reigns and agreed to become Marquette’s sixteenth head coach in the school’s history.

Fast forward another week and recruit Nick Williams opts out of his commitment to Marquette, and a week after that Tyshawn Taylor had committed to Kansas after originally planning to go to Marquette.

In between all this, Scott Cristopherson transferred to Iowa State, leaving the Golden Eagles another man down.

All before May!

Buzz Williams and his staff had the opportunity to let this season slip away and start fresh in a year, but with a perfect attitude for winning, Buzz buckled down and assured the team that this year was their year and to make the most of it, literally day-by-day.

Highlighted by three seniors in Wesley Matthews, Jerel McNeal, and Dominic James, the season kicked off with a 95-64 clobbering of Houston Baptist.

Marquette struggled to find its identity in losses to Dayton and Tennessee, and entering Big East play, the team was unsure if their undersized roster could get the job done.

What they showed over the next two months was that heart is truly measured in intangibles, not inches.

All it took was a pre-game pep talk from Buzz Williams to get his seniors fired up. He let them know they had never started 2-0 in Big East play, and wins over Villanova and Cincinnati followed.

Seven games later, I wonder if Buzz let them know they had never started 9-0 either.

The doubters were there all year, especially after wins versus Georgetown and Notre Dame that don’t look as big anymore.

The losses to South Florida and Villanova brought critics in packs, saying that the Golden Eagles just weren’t in that elite “Big Four” in the Big East.

As the end of the year rolled around and “the gauntlet” approached, Marquette fans were feeling good that they could take at least the bookends of the five game stretch, Georgetown and Syracuse, and maybe steal one in between.

Well, one broken fifth metatarsal later, the Golden Eagles were looking at a team without it's star point guard and without any direction. The gauntlet came and went and, as expected, they struggled mightily without their team leader.

Anyone who doubted the importance of James on the court was suddenly silent, and everyone wondered what was next on the roller coaster.

In the Big East Tournament, a dominating win over St. John’s showed the Big East what this team was capable of, especially on defense, and despite the heart-breaking loss to Villanova, there was a sense of togetherness back on the court that had not been seen since the injury to James.

The roller coaster of a season continued as Marquette drew a No. 6 seed in the tournament versus a little known, 30-win team from Utah State.