Since becoming conference rivals in 1989, Marquette

and Saint Louis have played thirty-five games against

each other under an assortment of coaches in three

different conferences. Some of them have been more

fun to watch than others. Yesterday afternoon's game,

the last before the two teams head to different

conferences next year, might have been the ugliest.

For thirty minutes, neither team could find the

basket. But Saint Louis finally got their shots to

drop and put the game away 51-39, ruining senior day.

Wednesday night, in the their second game of the

post-Travis Denier era, Marquette played an excellent

game against a pretty good team. Saturday, they

played a terrible game against a pretty bad team.

Coach Tom Crean made no attempt to sugarcoat the loss.

"St Louis gets the credit today. They were more

aggressive than us, they communicated better than us,

and they had better shot selection than us. They

deserved the win. We did not earn it today. We just

have to learn that When we don't talk on defense and

talk on offense, and we don't have an aggressive mind

set, we've got a long way to go."

The first half of the game was about as poor an

offensive half of basketball as has been seen in some

time. Marquette hit only eight of thirteen shots in

the first half, but still managed to eek out a 19-14

halftime lead. Saint Louis was even worse, hitting

only six of 23, for 26%. With seven minutes left in

the half, Marquette held ten point lead, which looked

comfortable in light of the fact that Saint Louis had

managed only four points to that point in the game.

But the Billikens made a bit of a run at the end of

the half and went into the locker room trailing 19-14.

The Golden Eagles opened the second half by missing

their first five shots before Joe Chapman hit a lay up

with 16:51 to build the lead back up to four. That

was Marquette's last basket until 9:35 was left in the

game, during which time Saint Louis managed to creep

ahead by three. Finally, Dameon Mason hit a three to

tie the game, and Marquette wen on a run of its own,

scoring seven straight points to go ahead 28-24 with

eight minutes left, and bringing a curiously loud

cheer from the crowd, considering that the team had

scored all of nine points in over eleven minutes.

Then the lids went back on the baskets for the Golden

Eagles, while the Bills finally found theirs. Saint

Louis hit six of their last seven shots to put the

game away.

The Marquette squad can look forward to some tough

practices before heading to the Conference USA

tournament on Wednesday. "We're going to have to play

with a little competitive fire," said Crean. "There's

no excuse for lack of aggressiveness, not talking on

defense. Hey, put it on me. Playing the wrong guys

or something. We're a little depleted there, but

there's no excuse for the lack of aggressiveness we

showed today."