Game #7 – Marquette 75, Milwaukee 72
Player of the Game - Darius Johnson-Odom certainly gets the nod if you look at both sides, as his 22-point first half in essence won the game for Marquette. Johnson-Odom had 16 of MU’s first 27 points as the Golden Eagles jumped out to a 27-11 advantage. But, for Milwaukee, tonight’s honors should go to Ja’Rob McCallum, who provided just the spark the Panthers were looking for. He led the way with 19 points and scored five in a row at one point to bring Milwaukee within six. McCallum wound up making 8-of-13 from the field. Honorable mention honors go to Anthony Hill, who is getting to the point where you can count on 14-18 points and 7-10 rebounds. He had 18 and 8 Saturday.
Turning Point - It’s hard to pick one in this game. UWM dug a pair of big holes, and each time it was Tony Meier helping get the Panthers out of it. He had a pair of three-pointers in the first half run that took the deficit from 16 to 5. He then hit a three to help spark a run that trimmed an 18-point second-half deficit all the way down to 2.
Stat That Mattered - Really it’s the first-half stats that mattered. MU shot 18-of-27 in the first 20 minutes and had 14 fast-break points and 15 points off turnovers. Plus, there’s the first-half line from Johnson-Odom, who made 8-of-9 from the floor and scored 22 points in the first 20 minutes.
The Notebook - Marquette has now won all 38 meetings between the two teams … this was easily the closest margin in the modern-era series between the two teams. If you toss out the early meetings when the final scores were in the 20’s, the closest was a 10-point margin (90-80) in 1967 … Ja’Rob McCallum’s 19 points were one off his career high of 20, set against Valparaiso last year … Anthony Hill has now been in double figures offensively in six of seven games while collecting eight or more rebounds four times … Tony Meier reached double figures for the second time this season.
Up Next - Milwaukee opens Horizon League play Thursday night against Youngstown State.
