Crowder leads Marquette past Murray State, 62-53

By NANCY ARMOUR, AP National Writer
11 hours, 49 minutes ago

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP)—Marquette has perfected the art of the comeback.

Down late yet again, Jae Crowder scored six points during a decisive 14-2 run, and the third-seeded Golden Eagles pulled away from Murray State for a 62-53 victory Saturday that sends the Golden Eagles into next weekend’s West Regional semifinals.

Crowder finished with 17 points, 12 in the second half, and also had 13 rebounds. Darius Johnson-Odom also had 17 for Marquette (27-7).

“When you’re playing a team like Murray State, they’re going to keep throwing punches and throwing punches, and you have to find a way to slow them down,” Johnson-Odom said. “We did a great job of that today.”

Isaiah Canaan had 16 points and six rebounds for the sixth-seeded Racers (31-2), who fell just short of their first trip to the regional semifinals for the second time in three years. This one is sure to sting, too, even if it wasn’t as gutwrenchingly close. Murray State lost to Butler 54-52 in 2010 when Gordon Hayward forced a Canaan turnover with about 10 seconds left.

The Racers have come a long way since. They won their first 23 games of the season, were the last team in the country to lose and showed against Marquette they can play with anyone.

“We proved today that we belong, and we belonged on a national stage,” Racers coach Steve Prohm said. “We just weren’t good enough the last seven minutes.”

Give Marquette some credit for that.

Despite a decided size advantage—Prohm joked Crowder and Johnson-Odom were missing spring practice somewhere—the Golden Eagles could never quite get in sync against the speedy, aggressive Racers. That Marquette was essentially playing a road game couldn’t have helped. Plenty of Racers fans made the three and a half hour drive for the game, and Kentucky fans jumped on the bandwagon in a show of state solidarity. When Jewuan Long made a layup to put the Racers up 46-41 with 7:43 to play, the crowd responded with the kind of roar usually reserved for that other Kentucky team.

But the Golden Eagles had plenty of practice at rallying during the regular season, when they came back to win six games after trailing by 11 or more points, and never doubted they could come back against the Racers.

“Eight minutes,” Johnson-Odom said, “is like 30 minutes.”

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