Marquette vs. Michigan State game recap: Golden Eagles fall to Spartans 79-68

The Eagles are probably better than their record indicates

On the BECB Twitter feed, we've had fun dogging on Marquette because going into the week they had both of the conference's losses this season. They still lead the conference in losses at three, but bear in mind that two of the three losses have come against ranked teams from the Big Ten, which is likely the best conference in all of the land. The Eagles will likely be near the bottom of our Power Rankings again this week, but there will be an asterisk.

The Eagles need a consistent scoring threat

In five of their first six games, Marquette has had a different leading scorer. While having depth is a good thing, having one player you can rely on to go out and be your leading scorer every night is a completely different animal. If you have a go-to scorer every night, and also have the depth scoring, things get opened up for those secondary scoring options.

The downside with going small is the lack of shot blocking

The Eagles have some size problems, as we've documented here previously. Going into Friday they were 8th in the conference on this young season with 2.6 blocks per game. They recorded zero in the loss to Michigan State, while the Spartans recorded six. In a close loss like this, even if Marquette had been able to block three or four shots, the entire tide may have turned.