INDIANAPOLIS – Marquette is headed back to the Sweet 16 and they have their poise to thank.
Tyler Kolek scored 21 points, dished out 11 assists and grabbed five rebounds to lead the No. 2 seed Marquette Golden Eagles to an 81-77 South Region second round win Sunday over the No. 10 Colorado Buffaloes.
David Joplin secured the win for Marquette (27-9) with two free throws with 7.4 seconds remaining to send the Golden Eagles to the Sweet 16 and a match up with No. 11 North Carolina State on Friday in Dallas.
“That’s about as good of a 10 seed as I’ve ever seen in my life,” Marquette coach Shaka Smart said. “We started watching tape a couple days ago, and we said, who made these guys a 10 seed? No disrespect to anyone.
Man, they’re a talented, talented team, and they got going in the second half. But our guys never blinked, never wavered. These two did a phenomenal job leading the way. We made some mistakes, but we kept belief in each other. We stayed connected.
“Then I thought down the stretch we got enough defensive stops to win the game. It certainly wasn’t our best defensive half, but the activity that our guys had throughout the game was disruptive enough, and then two huge, huge free throws by David Joplin.”
Marquette is headed back to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2013 and the first time with the talented group led by Kolek and Jones.
“Yeah, even for this group we feel like it’s been a long time coming,” Kolek said. “That first year didn’t go how we wanted. Second year certainly didn’t go how we wanted, and then coming back this year we had a vengeance. I told the guys before the game, this moment has been in our nightmares and we’re not running from it anymore.”
Kam Jones scored 16 of his 18 points in the first half to lead Marquette to an 11-point halftime lead.
Tristan da Silva’s three from the top of the circle tied the game, 74-74, with 4:02 remaining.
Coming out of a timeout, Chase Ross hit a three from the left wing to put Marquette up, 77-74, before Simpson answered to draw the Buffs within one.
Kolek drove the paint with a one-handed floater for a 79-76 left. Cody Williams had a chance to bring Colorado back within one with 21.2 seconds left but converted only the back end of two free throws to make it 79-77 Marquette.
“Relationships is our number one advantage, and that’s just something that we believe in, and I think it won us the game today,” Smart said.
KJ Simpson, who won Friday’s game with a buzzer-beating sideline jumper, led Colorado (26-11) with 20 points. Tristan da Silva added 17 for the Buffs, who fell just short of reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1969.
Marquette raced out to a 22-11 lead thanks to red-hot shooting. The Golden Eagles sank a remarkable 16-of-21 shots from the field to start the game and ended the half 19-of-28 (67.9 percent) from the floor.
The Golden Eagles hit their first 12 attempts from inside the arc and finished the first half 13-of-15 from 2-point range.
Jones led the way with 16 points in the first half, shooting 6-of-9, including four 3-pointers.
But Marquette ended the half on an 8-2 run on baskets by four different players and led 45-34 at the break.
The Buffs picked up momentum in the opening minute of the second half as Jones committed his third personal foul. Colorado went on a 21-9 run, taking their only lead, 55-54, on Simpson’s fourth three-pointer, his third triple in the first five minutes of the second half.
“We didn’t have much of an answer for them defensively all night,” Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. “I would just say that when a team shoots 61 percent against you for the game, almost 62 percent, and you’ve still got a chance at the end, it means you’re doing something right.
“For this team, what that means to me is they’ve been competing their tails off the whole year because you don’t give up 61 percent and stay in a game. But we rebounded the ball well, we fought, we battled, we just came up a little bit short.”
