The Marquette Golden Eagles were the favorites coming in to their game against the Villanova Wildcats with their higher ranking but it was the opposite that happened.
The team bowed to their hosts, 81-66, and did not have any promising fight since the middle part of the first half.
The second half came but they arrived with almost the same listless energy to the point that head coach Shaka Smart had to sub off three of his main starters early in hopes of finding an energizer from the bench.
He found one in Zaide Lowery but his career high 25 points were still not enough.
The team are now 2-4 this February after they recorded three consecutive losses to Big East rivals UConn Huskies (during National Marquette Day), St. John’s Red Storm, and Creighton Bluejays.
They were able to recover from the losses although one could say that those wins (against Seton Hall and DePaul) were expected.
Shaka Smart on what makes Marquette Golden Eagles struggle
The loss against the Wildcats probably stings more than the three losses this month since they were of the same level as them.
Their performance last Friday provided no hint that they are among the top teams in their conference.
Smart thinks his players are yet to figure out the stuff they need to realize to deliver in big moments. He suggested they are not desperate enough.
“I don’t think that, as a group, we haven’t had enough true connectivity around what exactly we have to do in the moment,” Smart said after the game.
“You can fill in the blank for that, there’s offensive things, there are defensive things. A desperation, if you will.”
He also refused to use fatigue as an excuse saying everybody deals with that.
“It’s February, late February, I’m sure there’s a level of fatigue there. But everybody deals with that. Villanova’s dealing with that. Other teams are dealing with that. We have to understand that it starts with having an extreme hunger as a group.
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