Marquette Travels To Cincinnati Saturday In League Action

Jan. 31, 2008

The No. 17/16 Marquette University men's basketball team hits the road in search of its first conference road victory of the season when the squad travels to Cincinnati Saturday morning. Opening tip for the ESPN+ broadcast, which airs in the greater Milwaukee area on WMLW, is slated for 11 a.m. CT. Eric Collins (play-by-play) and Mike Jarvis (analyst) will have the call. The Golden Eagles and Bearcats did not face each other in 2006-07 and have played just once since the former Conference USA programs moved to the BIG EAST Conference. UC owns the overall all-time series 24-15, most recently claiming a 70-66 decision on Jan. 7, 2006.

Depth On Display In Win Over USF
The 2007-08 roster features one of the deepest roster's during head coach Tom Crean's nine-year tenure and that strength was on full display in Tuesday night's victory over USF.

Marquette's top two leading scorers, juniors Dominic James and Jerel McNeal, combined to net a total of just nine points on 3-of-16 shooting from the field. The duo entered the contest contributing 27.6 points per game through the first 18 outings of the campaign.

Fortunately for the Golden Eagles, sophomore Lazar Hayward and junior Wesley Matthews were there to pick up their teammates. Hayward netted a career-best 23 points (7-of-13 FG and 8-of-9 FT) and Matthews matched his season-high with 16 points, including a trio of key 3-pointers during a decisive second-half run.

Matthews Repeating Trend From Last Season
Junior guard Wesley Matthews, who matched a season high with 16 points against USF, has now reached double figures in five-straight games and seven of the last eight outings.

Through the first 14 games of the year, he netted 10-or-more points in a game on just eight occasions. He heated up in a similar fashion in 2006-07, reaching double figures in 19 of the final 20 games after accomplishing the feat in seven of the first 14 to begin the campaign.

In the last five outings, Matthews is averaging 13.6 points per game while shooting 60 percent from behind the 3-point line.