How to Watch, Stream, Listen, Follow

Game Time: 1:30pm CT

Location: BMO Harris Arena, Milwaukee, WI

TV: FOX

Stream: FSGO

Radio: 1620AM the Zone in Omaha / 540AM in Milwaukee

Other Blogs: White & Blue Review - Creighton / Anonymous Eagle - Marquette

Tweeters:

Creighton - Rob Anderson / Creighton MBB / Tom Nemitz / “Patrick Marshall” / Matt DeMarinis / Corey Lathrop / Jon Nyatawa / Fake Blue Crew

Marquette - Sam Newberry / Marquette MBB / Matt Velasquez / Anonymous Eagle / Paint Touches / Jack Goods / Grant Becker / Marquette Nation

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Odds & Ends

Marquette is favored by 1.5 points according to Odds Shark.

Over/under set at 163.5.

Kenpom has the Golden Eagles with a slight edge over the Bluejays, with a 53% chance to win by a score of 84-83.

If you’re thinking about betting on this - the last game at the Bradley Center, the last game of the regular season, the get-in and get-right game for the Golden Eagles - I’d advise you to do something more productive with your money. Perhaps you could use those dollars to purchase a toy for an orphan or purchase an orphan to give your toys. Perhaps you could buy a doughnut from a struggling pastry business or buy the pastry business so you can sell doughnuts. Perhaps you could give a homeless man some money to get drunk or become homeless and use your money on booze. Perhaps you could buy bottled water for the kids in Flint or you could move to Flint and pay for poisoned water. Perhaps you could buy a car and run into a building or buy a building, build an add-on that juts out into the middle of the street, then have cars run into it. Perhaps you could buy a vacation for a stressed out family or become stressed yourself and then take a vacation. Perhaps you could buy some pot from a drug dealer and feel the full thrust of paranoia to the point where you think there’s a cop outside or you could buy your way through the police academy, become a cop, and stand outside of a known stoner’s window so his paranoia becomes reality. There are so many possibilities. Don’t limit yourself to gambling.

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What Happened And What’s Changed

Well, you probably remember what happened the last time these two teams met on the hardwood court. Creighton, for the better part of 25 minutes of game action, held onto the lead and momentum in Omaha, saw top scoring threat Markus Howard exit the game with a hip injury, then slowly curled into the fetal position as Wojo and his band of hot shooting boys cemented themselves into a 2-3 zone.

Sacar Anim went absolutely insane after Howard’s injury, scoring 26 points on 11-16 shooting, while Andrew Rowsey ran around like a chicken with its head cutoff, trying to evade Khyri Thomas’s powerful defensive presence, and ended up scoring 21 on 8-20 shooting.

Speaking of Khyri Thomas, he was the only saving grace for the Jays. He went on a personal 10 point run to keep his squad in the game, forced Rowsey into uncomfortable shots, but couldn’t carry the weight of the offensive scoring alone, and somehow didn’t have the game-tying shot drawn up for him. Instead, it went to the bizarrely cold Marcus Foster, ending in a clangarangarang with Marquette scooping up the rebound, thus ending the ballgame.

In the three games since that fateful evening, Marquette managed to handle St. John’s without Markus Howard, lost to DePaul with Markus Howard, then, with their postseason hopes balancing delicately on the line, triumphed over Georgetown in OT.

Creighton, in that same span, got the shit kicked out of them at Hinkle, won an absolutely mind-bending thriller over Villanova in overtime, then whooped the ever loving piss out of DePaul at home.

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Verba de Ludis

If Creighton wins this game they get the three seed. If they lose, they can plummet a five seed. Here’s all that nonsense in a flowchart from Jon Nyatawa:

AWESOME

Now that we’ve got that covered, because Creighton is firmly into the tournament now, we must peer upon Marquette and their situation.

This is a must-win.

This is a must-win for so, so many reasons. For dignity. For postseason play. For the opportunity to close down the Bradley Center in a regular season game and not in the NIT. This is for all the marbles for the Golden Eagles.

So what gives? Do they try to deploy the 2-3 zone again to stymie the Jays, even though statistical analysis shows that Creighton does well against it? Given that Greg McDermott likely prepped for it?

Or do they just cross their fingers, close their eyes defensively, and hope they can out shoot and out rebound the Bluejays?

Again, this is for everything they’ve built this year. If they can’t manage to win this one, they’re almost certainly going to the NIT barring some sort of god damn miracle that sees them winning the auto bid for the BIG EAST.

Will Sacar Anim replicate his success? Will Howard and Rowsey overcome their mirrored image selves and find some balance?

I don’t know. Fuck it, this is the last game of the year. Let’s burn the Bradley Center down with a 130-129 double OT game.

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Song of the Day - Somewhere Over The Rainbow - Israel Kamakawiwoʻole