Marquette wins 1st Big East title, routs Xavier 65-51
(Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
NEW YORK - Tyler Kolek and No. 6 Marquette raced out to a hefty lead and never looked back, beating No. 15 Xavier 65-51 on Saturday night to win the Big East Tournament for the first time.
Kolek, the Big East Player of the Year, had 20 points and eight rebounds as the top-seeded Golden Eagles (28-6) dominated a Big East final that brought a Midwestern flavor to Madison Square Garden.
Coach Shaka Smart's surprising team will head into the NCAA Tournament with a nine-game winning streak after Marquette's first appearance in the Big East championship game resulted in one of its best performances of a scintillating season.
RELATED: Check out the new and improved FOX Sports app
Kolek's steal and layup made it 51-27 with 14:12 left. Less than a minute later, after two offensive rebounds by the Golden Eagles, David Joplin made a corner 3 to double up second-seeded Xavier (25-9).
Joplin finished with 12 points. Kolek was selected the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
Adam Kunkel scored 12 points to lead the Musketeers, who had a five-game winning streak snapped.
This was the first Big East title game since the conference dropped football in 2013 to not feature any of its longstanding Northeast members.
Still, the Milwaukee school (Marquette, which joined in 2005) and the Cincinnati school (Xavier, which joined in 2013) filled The Garden for the first 1 vs. 2 seed Big East Tournament final in 19 years.
It looked more like a 1-16 NCAA Tournament game for a while.
SIGN UP TODAY: Get daily headlines, breaking news emails from FOX6 News
Marquette jumped out to a 21-4 lead, and never relented.
During a particularly splendid 2 1/2 minutes, Stevie Mitchell swished a corner 3, Kolek came off a screen to make another 3, Kam Jones got free for a reverse layup after a nifty hesitation move on the baseline and Kolek converted a layup off a give-and-go with Oso Ighodaro.
At that point, Marquette was up 33-10 with 7:02 left in the first half and the Golden Eagles had not yet committed a turnover.
The Musketeers responded with a 14-5 run to end the period, but with their fans chanting "We are, Mar-quette!" the Golden Eagles went into the break up 39-24.
Marquette's only previous league tournament title was as a member of Conference USA in 1997.
Twenty-six years later, the Golden Eagles were able to clear the bench in the final minute of the Big East championship game and their fans were finally able to make Madison Square Garden feel like home.