Beating anyone in this conference twice so challenging. Let alone with the second leg at their place, let alone when the opposing coaches are McDermott and Wojo. I thought they maybe had a 50% chance to win one in either Omaha (difficult place to play) or Milwaukee (where Marq hadn't lost all year), and l and would have been 2-0 at under 5%. Bad job by be and incredible job by staff and team to turn this season around in a week.
Seriously, sandwiching @Duke with @Creighton and @Marq might be the toughest 3 game stretch on the entire schedule. Add to it our backs were to the wall after the GTown game, to play 3 in 7 days on the road in those venues and pick up two Ws is amazing.
You don't see very often a 15 point lead turn into 1 around the 5 minute mark, take that punch and stretch it back out to 6, then have Marq come after you again and take a 1 point lead with 36 seconds left for the first time since it was 4-2 less than 2 minutes into the game...and you still win the game. Not to #10 in their building where they haven't lost all year. Taking two punches like that late and getting a W anyway, with two guys playing 40, is just straight up guts.
Have been critical of this staff's in game schema. But keeping a team stead and focused enough to do what they did this last week - after their 2 worst games of the year consecutively in Butler/GTown, having lost 4 of 5, and mixing the worst lost of the season to Duke in the middle - is a skill. You could have lost the team and this season after the GTown game and instead they did exactly the opposite. Maybe that's where having been to the dance at the highest level as players really does come into play, that ability to not get too high or too low, block everyone else out, and get laser focused on the next game.
8 left, 5 at home, no reason not to go 5-3 and leave no doubt about NCAA prospects going into BET at 22-9 / 10-8. A, maybe the, key now is to find consistency. Team has demonstrated it can play with and beat anyone in conference. If they bring 80% or more of what they brought to Marq last night 5-3 should not be much of a problem, they are better than most teams left on schedule but you have to bring it every night. If the Butler/GTown version returns, it could 3-5 without much problem.