Howard outduels Powell, but Marquette falls to Seton Hall in Milwaukee

As soon as Markus Howard had the first 12 points of the game for the Marquette Golden Eagles on Saturday, it felt like it could be one of those days. A day where Howard was going to score a lot of points, but if he didn’t get help from his teammates, it would be an ultimately fruitless day for Marquette.

That ended up being the exact case, as Howard had 37 points in Marquette’s 88-79 loss to Myles Powell and the Seton Hall Pirates in MIlwaukee. Powell also led his team in scoring with 28 points, but perhaps the biggest difference between Seton Hall and Marquette was secondary scoring. Sacar Anim was Marquette’s second-leading scorer with 13 points, but Seton Hall’s second-leading scorer was Sandro Mamukelashvili, who recorded a career-high 26 points and was even better than Powell at times.

Marquette led for just one total minute in the game, as Kevin Willard’s Pirates focused on what they wanted to do from the very beginning and executed it perfectly, as the Pirates move another game closer to capturing their first Big East regular season championship since 1993. If Seton Hall goes 2-0 this week against Villanova and Creighton, they will win the league outright.

The Golden Eagles have now lost four of their last five games, and while their NCAA Tournament hopes likely are not in jeopardy, they certainly haven’t done themselves any favors seeding-wise over the past couple weeks. With DePaul and St. John’s remaining on the schedule, it seems like a good chance for Marquette to get back on track, but Marquette did lose on the road to St. John’s last year and DePaul two years ago.