The Edge Was Not Set: Oklahoma 75, Marquette 74

On Friday, as per usual on game day, YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles men’s basketball made a game day post on Instagram.

The text/caption/whatever you want to call it: “Setting our edge.”

Now, I don’t know precisely what message head coach Shaka Smart was trying to impart on his team with this message, or even if it was a message/mantra for Friday’s game against Oklahoma. What I do know for certain is that “setting the edge” is traditionally a football term, and there’s a lot of ways to go about it, but the short version is: Don’t let an offensive runner get outside, where a long gain is likely. It’s a containment philosophy from a defensive perspective, and it’s also a “each man must do his job right for this to work” process in actual usage.

At the very least, “do your job and contain the opponent” is the forward facing message that it certainly seems like Marquette was attempting to project in the early hours of Black Friday.

It is not a message that made it through the end of Marquette’s 75-54 loss to Oklahoma.

You can argue that it didn’t make it to halftime, as the Sooners were shooting 43% on three-pointers at the break, and Marquette’s 13 point lead with 4:46 to play was down to just four. MU closed the half with four straight stops, which was good news, and opening the second half with two more to complete a skunk and give the Golden Eagles four kills on the day with 18:41 to play was also pretty solid news.

A bucket from Chase Ross got the lead back to double digits, 48-37, with 15 minutes and change to go, and Royce Parham scored inside to get the lead back to 12 points. Oklahoma scored the next six in a row, and with 9:05 to play, the lead was completely gone after a tip in by OU’s Tae Davis.

Oklahoma nudged their margin up to four, but back-to-back and-1 buckets from Nigel James turned into five points for Marquette (NJ missed the first freebie), and with 5:36 to play, the Golden Eagles were out in front, just by one point. If your message for the game is “setting our edge,” well, right this second seems like a terrific time to contain your opponent.

One minute and 59 seconds later, Oklahoma was up seven.

With 2:32 to play, the Sooners were up eight.

AND YET SOMEHOW, BECAUSE GOD LOVES CHASE ROSS, THE GAME WAS TIED WTIH 58 SECONDS LEFT. The senior from Texas hit two monster threes on either side of a James layup in transition, and all MU had to do was — wait for it — contain Oklahoma one more time and score to win the game.

This did not happen. Darrion Reid hit a three-pointer — literally his sixth of the season on 21 attempts, but his second of the game — and Tae Davis fouled Nigel James in the back court with 34 seconds to play. That’s way too early for “foul up three” but the end result was Oklahoma with the ball up one with a little over one possession clock’s worth of time left in the game.

We can argue about whether or not Marquette could have gone for a foul faster, but it ended up working out with 17 seconds to play as Nijel Pack just hucked the ball out of bounds while MU was pressuring him. After a timeout, MU had 17 seconds to create something, where any made shot wins the game for Marquette.

Nigel James probed the defense a little, he passed off to Chase Ross, and with time disappearing into the ether, Ross was forced to take whatever drive he could get and force up whatever shot he could get, in this case, a fadeaway 12 footer, absolutely not a shot he practices… and yeah, he missed.

Up 13 in the first half. Up 12 in the second. Up 1 with 5:36 to play. Couldn’t contain the Sooners. Lost.

All of this in front of just over a shade more than 2,500 people in an 8,000 seat arena with a big ol’ Bad Boy Mowers logo covering the UIC Flames logo in the middle of the floor.

Marquette is now 4-4 on the year, and barring a massive surprise win either at Wisconsin or at Purdue, the Golden Eagles will go into Big East play without a single victory against a top 150 opponent.

Highlights, such as they are, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and NBC:

Up Next: Marquette returns to action with a return to Fiserv Forum on Tuesday night. They’ll be hosting Valparaiso with tipoff on ESPN+ set for 7pm Central. The Beacons are 4-2 at the moment with a Saturday home game against Western Michigan pending.