Marquette University Athletics
Marquette University
Eastern Washington
Chapman's 17 points leads way to victory
2/13/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 23, 2005
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Senior Joe Chapman came off the bench to score a team-high 17 points and lead Marquette to an 83-73 victory over Eastern Washington in the opening round of the Carrs Safeway Great Alaska Shootout.
"I struggled at the beginning of the year to get my motivation going and get ready," Chapman said. "But I just came out and played hard. I had two very good practices leading up to the game, I was playing with confidence and came out and played well. The guys gave me confidence before the game and told me just to go out there and shoot the ball."
Marquette advances to Friday's championship semifinal round where they'll face Oral Roberts at 8:30 p.m. CT.
"We will absolutely have our hands full Friday night with Oral Roberts," Crean said. "That looks like an NCAA tournament team to me. They're really well-coached, extremely good on the offensive boards, had seven layups or dunks in the first half (against USC) and missed six more. They're going to be absolutely fearless on the boards."
Five players scored in double figures for the Golden Eagles, with freshman Jerel McNeal, Dominic James and Wesley Matthews scoring 15, 14 and 12, respectively, and senior Steve Novak adding 11 points.
The Golden Eagles won the rebounding game 36-30, converted 26-of-32 from the free throw line and shot 46.3-percent from the field (25-54). Four Marquette players pulled down five or more rebounds, led by McNeal's six.
"I'm very proud of Joe," said Crean. "He's continued to build. Even when he didn't play a lot last week he came back and been a very solid player. He had a tremendous practice on Monday, was 6 of 8 from the three in practice and 7 of 9 from the field and carried it on through yesterday. We told him today, `It's going to go. It's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when.' And it went at the very beginning for him."
MU improves to 6-1 all-time at the Shootout. Friday's game will be just the third all-time between the two programs, with each team having won once.
