To say the Marquette Golden Eagles' offense laid an egg Saturday in the regional final against the Syracuse Orange would not only be an understatement, but it would also be an insult to eggs. The Golden Eagles finished with 39 points, far surpassing the previous record for futility in a regional final.
NCAA Tournament 2013: Marquette’s historically bad offense against Syracuse
Marquette’s offense left much to be desired Saturday, at least for those who desire to watch basketball games in which shots are made instead of missed horribly.
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Since the shot clock was introduced in 1986, the previous low for points in a regional final was 45. The Memphis Tigers set that mark in a five-point loss to the UCLA Bruins in a 2006 Elite Eight game.
Marquette was 12-of-53 from the floor Saturday — that’s 22.6 percent — and 3-of-25 from three-point range.
Syracuse wasn’t great from the floor, either. The 94 combined points Saturday were also the lowest in a regional final in the shot-clock era. But the Orange’s 38-percent performance was more than enough given Marquette’s struggles against Syracuse’s suffocating zone.
On Feb. 25, Marquette topped the Orange in Syracuse, 74-71. Marquette was 20-of-47 in that game.
Marquette was the eighth team to score fewer than 40 points in an NCAA tournament game in the shot-clock era. Another one of those eight was Syracuse's first opponent in this tournament: the Montana Grizzlies lost to the Orange, 81-34, on March 21 to kick off Syracuse's run to the Final Four.
Before Saturday, the Golden Eagles had not scored fewer than 47 points in a game this season.
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