As South Carolina’s matchup Friday against Marquette in the first round of the NCAA Tournament rapidly approaches, editor Abe Danaher sat down with the Marquette Wire’s sports editor Jack Goods to talk about the upcoming matchup and get a Golden Eagle’s view on how the game will go.
AD: What was the overwhelming feeling around campus in the lead-up to the selection show? Did most people feel like Marquette was going to be in?
JG: Yeah, I think that the people that really follow it closely were pretty confident. I had to talk a few friends down about it, because it’s been a really rough couple of years for Marquette’s program, and it's kinda hard for people to emotionally buy in — it's been — they’ve seen so many disappointments. So everyone was just a little bit skeptical, and despite the fact that Marquette’s got some really solid top-50 wins in the RPI, and honestly, when you beat Villanova you’re going to get some recognition. But sweeping Creighton, sweeping Xavier, Georgia ended up being a really nice win, so did Vanderbilt, there were enough resume-building wins to feel confident, but there were still enough losses to keep you sweating down the stretch. I mean, after beating Villanova, they come back and they lose to St. John's on the road, they got swept by Providence, they got upped in the first round of the Big East by Seton Hall, so that left people a little bit nervous, especially because they were hovering around that 10, 11 seed. I felt pretty confident. I felt like they were pretty much a lock to be in. The real question for me was whether or not they were going to go to Dayton or not.
AD: Now we talked about how South Carolina has kind of a poor offense, strong defense and Marquette has strong offense, weak defense. Where do you see the advantages for either team laying, and do you see this being a high-scoring affair?
JG: Yeah, I mean, I think there definitely could be [a high-scoring affair], because Marquette’s got just so many scorers and if they’re shooting well it's always a high scoring game, because the defense isn’t gonna stop anybody and they survive around scoring teams. It comes down to the guards for Marquette, usually, how well do they play. Markus Howard, a point guard primarily, has been outstanding as a freshman this year. If it wasn’t such a great freshman class in the Big East, in a normal year he probably would have won Freshman of the year. He shoots like 50 percent from three-point range. And Andrew Rowsey, who has played point guard a little bit, now they’re playing them together, he’s another player that’s an outstanding three-point shooter. You have to watch out for his pump fake on his three, because he catches — at least once a game — he catches [teams] on that. Those two and Katin Reinhardt, and Hauser, they’ve got almost their entire team besides the center can shoot threes. So, that poses a really tough threat for any team. But this team, they consistently have trouble on defense, and they’ve had issues with the pick-and-roll from the start. They tried zone, they tried man, and nothing really works for a consistent amount of time.
They really struggled recently against Seton Hall. Just the matchup with Angel Delgado, they faced a team that has strong rebounding, and it's really tough for Marquette to pull that out. They just don’t have the size to compete with that, even though they have a pretty strong center.
AD: With Greenville being so close to Columbia, how do you see the close proximity for the Gamecocks affecting this game?
JG: You know, I was a little concerned seeing that from Marquette’s perspective, just because Marquette isn’t a great road team. Pretty much all of their big wins minus the Creighton and Xavier [wins] on the road were home. They've struggled against teams that many think they should beat. Seton Hall on the road is one they fell apart at the end in when they had a clear path to victory and then in the last two minutes it just kind of all went to — all blew up. Providence on the road, St. John’s on the road, they’ve had some really disastrous outings when they're not in the Bradley center. So honestly it's not a true home game for South Carolina, but I do think that does play a factor, especially because Marquette’s pretty young, and they've got two freshmen in their starting lineup, so that definitely could come up. Especially because they're on a bigger stage than they’ve been on in a long time. There’s a bit of pressure, though I feel like a lot of people are — they feel like they are playing with house money at this point. But this is an established program, it’s a winning program, that hasn’t been here in a long time. Four years now. And, so, I’m sure the guys are feeling it a little bit.
AD: Fill in the blanks. Marquette will win this game if _______. And South Carolina will win this game if ______.
JG: Marquette will win this game if they shoot well. They didn’t against Seton Hall, and that’s the main reason why they lost. If they hit their threes, they win. If they don’t, they lose. It’s just a very live-by-the-three, die-by-the-three atmosphere at Marquette.
I think South Carolina wins if, you could say Marquette doesn’t shoot well, or South Carolina is able to dominate Marquette in the paint. Especially when it comes to South Carolina on offense, because despite the fact that Marquette shoots really well from three, we are just playing the probability game. It’s sometimes really difficult for them to outscore teams from the three when the other team is getting really high-percentage looks in the paint. That’s something that come up a handful of times this season. Seton Hall, the way that game went down most recently, I thought even if [Marquette] had a normal three-point shooting game it would have been really tough to make up for all the easy buckets they gave up.