It was in Marquette’s hands, and then it wasn’t, and then it was within reach.
But at the end, it was Xavier’s basketball game. At the final horn, the Musketeers got the nine point win over the visiting Golden Eagles, 80-71, and Marquette drops to 0-1 in Big East play and 8-4 overall.
I believe that if you asked head coach Shaka Smart, the first 10 or so minutes of this game might have looked exactly what his platonic ideal of Marquette basketball is supposed to be. The Golden Eagles were playing with energy and a little bit of the violence, to use the head coach’s own words, and a layup from Greg Elliott gave Marquette a 26-17 lead with 10:33 to go.