GW beats Miami, falls to Marquette


The trip to Fullerton for the Wooden Legacy tournament has gone pretty for the Colonials so far, beating Miami 71-63 in overtime, GW's first win over a power conferemce team since 2010, then falling to #20 Marquette 76-60.

GW now faces #20 Creighton and their star Doug McDermott, one of the top scorers in the NCAA for the last few years. It's going to be a tough one.

In the first game against Miami, the good guys played their game: shoot well from inside and outside (8/16 from three), get a lot of players scoring, and play (mostly) good half court defense. The Colonials only turned it over 6 times while taking 7 steals and blocking 5 shots, and five players scored in double figures.

For a while, three point shooting kept GW in the game (or bailed them out) but you can't really complain when shots were dropping. Miami had a fair amount of alley-oops and some of the Colonials (namely Nemanka Mikic and John  Kopriva) got burned a few times on D. The guys had pretty good transition defense though, and Mikic was also the leading scorer for GW with 16. Joe McDonald tied it up late and then in overtime, the good guys took over, outscoring Miami 12-4. It was a good, intense game to watch, and great to see GW play well on national tv. The guys stayed tough and pulled it out.

As for the Marquette game, it was less fun. The Golden Eagles seemed to hit every shot and either kept GW out of rhythm, or maybe the Colonials were just in a funk. GW didn't shoot well at all, 33% from the door and 21% from three, despite another game of single-digit turnovers, with the good guys only giving it up 7 times. Marquette outrebounded the Colonials 44-33 too. The refs didn't help either, calling some questionable flops and such. Thankfully I watched part of it from a whiskey and burger bar in Knoxville, TN so I was able to drown my sorrows. 

There were some other positives though, to go with 7 turnovers. For one, it was on the main ESPN. It's still only the Colonials' first loss, and the good guys outscored Marquette in the second half. They also blocked 9 shots.

And tomorrow's game is against another ranked opponent, #20 Creighton, who lost to San Diego State 86-80. It's at 6:30 pm on ESPNU, so tune in! 

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