It wasn’t just the ball that was floating in the air for the last few seconds. First place in the Big East also hung in the balance.
Grasping fate with his fingertips, Olivier-Maxence Prosper tapped in an offensive rebound with 1.6 seconds left to lead the 11th-ranked Golden Eagles to a dramatic 69-68 win over No. 16 Xavier Wednesday night at the Fiserv Forum .
BOX RESULT:Marquette 69, Xavier 68
MU (21-6, 13-3 Big East) cemented his lead in the league standings and will not play until another high-stakes game in Creighton on Tuesday. The Musketeers (19-7, 11-4) looked set to take the top spot for most of the game, but instead fell back to second place with Creighton and Providence. All three of these teams play against other conference opponents on Saturday.
“Every time I do what I do, I smash the opposite glass,” Prosper said. “I knew if (teammate Kam Jones) missed it, that was my rebound.
“And I just went as hard as I could. It bounced right off and I just went up and put it back in. This is just an effort game. Something I’ve done many times this year in practice or whatever.”
Olivier-Maxence Prosper comes up with clutch games
The winning putback wasn’t Prosper’s only clutch play.
With the Golden Eagles trailing 66-63, Stevie Mitchell made his sixth steal and Tyler Kolek fed Prosper for a hard layup with 29 seconds left.
MU head coach Shaka Smart called the time-out and set the stage for the wild finish.
First, Smart used freshman Chase Ross to harass the inbounder, and the Golden Eagles forced a turnover. A baseline out-of-bounds play resulted in Oso Ighodaro being fouled and taking two clutch free throws to put the Golden Eagles ahead.
But Xavier sped down the pitch and got a layup from Jack Nunge with eight seconds to go. MU didn’t give a time out, Kam Jones drove to the right side of the paint and got a good look at the basket bouncing off the rim.
Then Prosper came to destroy the boards – and the party – with his tip-in.
“They had the ball, I think there was 29 seconds left and we didn’t just want to foul,” Smart said. “Especially (Souley) Boum. He’s almost automatically on the line.
“So we went to one of our print shops and I told the guys be as aggressive as you can. And I told them they like to throw the ball in and then back to the inbounder, so rotate up and make that a hard pass. They did great and forced a turnover.
“And then we could get the ball and do what we did. But Kam Jones deserves a lot of credit because it wasn’t his best game, but he persevered and stayed connected to his team and teammates. Just his presence on the ground going forward, even though he only scored five points, makes a big difference for us.”
Prosper, who finished with seven points, has alternated between single-digit and double-digit goals in his last eight games.
Playing the hero in front of 16,041 screaming fans was therapeutic for Prosper.
“It’s about sticking with it,” Prosper said. “Maybe not my best night of shooting today. But it doesn’t matter.
“I’m sticking with it. I’m sticking with the process. And I thought my team needed me. My team needs me to do my best. And stay aggressive. Stay confident.”
Stevie Mitchell does all the little things as ‘Domino’
The Golden Eagles suffered from a frosty lightning start and had to climb out of a 13-point deficit in the first half.
The second half was a slugfest between two Big East heavyweights. The Musketeers stayed tough despite being shorthanded without Zach Freemantle (foot), Desmond Claude (non-COVID disease) and Kam Craft (knee).
MU needed to find a spark with hustle plays, and most of those were provided by Mitchell, the sophomore guard, who also posted a team-high 17 points.
Xavier had 17 turnovers, including six on Mitchell’s steals. MU had 15 offensive rebounds, with Mitchell catching three and Ighodaro catching six.
“Just play my role, just do what I tried to do in the game,” Mitchell said. “Just be careful. Play hard. And just let everything else take care of itself.
“We will always stick together when the shots don’t go in or go in. We will always play as a team. And play together because we love each other. We have good relationships with each other. Regardless of what happens on offense, we know defense is something we can control.”
Smart’s motivation – after a water jug earlier this month – for the game was a domino box held on the bench by Jonah Lucas. This week everyone in the program had personalized dominoes on which they wrote what they would bring to the team.
“Mine was to encourage and celebrate teammates for doing little sweepstakes,” Mitchell said. “So we all wrote something on it and put it in the box.
“And just used it to keep pushing to be a domino for each other. When you have that many dominoes on your team, things will tip in that direction. And I think that happened.”
Smart has made “energy-producing behavior” a cornerstone of the program, and no player exemplifies that better than Mitchell.
“He’s unique,” said Smart. “They broke the mold when they made it. He’s just made of something very special.
“Very, very high character. And incredible care. The care factor for him is as high as I’ve ever seen him. This can sometimes work against you because when things aren’t going perfectly, your mind can race. But I thought Stevie had a lot of aggressiveness throughout the game. He flew around.”
Golden Eagles control fate of Big East title
MU has four more regular season games in the hunt for its first Big East title since the 2012-13 season.
The players are enjoying the ride after most of the underdogs had low expectations of the team.
“That’s where it all starts, is the fun we have when we’re together,” Prosper said. “Every day we come to training, to training, during games, we have fun.
“We enjoy our company. We enjoy being together. As the coach says, it’s a domino. This is our largest domino. How we treat each other.”
Smart, always philosophical, saw the game as valuable beyond the overall rating.
“I’ll be honest, I could feel it a little bit in the shootaround, there was a little bit of ‘Oh, wow, this is a big game, first place is at stake,'” Smart said. “We don’t necessarily have a team that has been in this situation a lot.
“So that’s a learning curve for us. You can’t do your best playing through avoidance goals. Not making mistakes or missing a shot or conceding a basket. You have to be attacking and aggressive and let your hair down and tackle it. And I thought we did a lot better in the second half.”
More:Damarius Owens is Marquette’s first engagement in the basketball recruiting class of 2024. Here’s what you should know about him.
More:Kam Jones’ three-hands seem to hang in the air forever. Why is the Marquette guard shooting like that?
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More:Damarius Owens is Marquette’s first engagement in the basketball recruiting class of 2024. Here’s what you should know about him.
More:Kam Jones’ three-hands seem to hang in the air forever. Why is the Marquette guard shooting like that?