PROVIDENCE — The Providence Friars dug deep in their Big East home opener Wednesday night but could not stop the Markus Howard Show.
Howard, a 5-foot-11 sophomore guard at Marquette, put on one of the all-time best basketball shows this city has ever seen. He poured in 52 points, 42 after halftime, to lead the Golden Eagles to a 95-90 overtime win over the Friars. Howard hit 11 three-pointers and broke the Friars’ hearts by scoring his team’s final 15 points of regulation and then 10 more in the overtime.
“I just play off my instincts and play off what the game gives me,” Howard said. “Coach is drawing up great plays and I’m trying to make good reads. My teammates were reacting off things I was doing as well.”
Asked how it felt to catch such a roll after halftime, Howard said, “I didn’t really expect for anything like that to happen. I was just trying to go with the flow and take what the game gave me.”
A large, troublesome dose of adversity has sat a few seats down from Ed Cooley on the PC bench much of the last few weeks and that persisted on this night. Besides Howard’s career night — the most points ever scored against the Friars — the latest bit of misfortune to befall the Friars found leading scorer and rebounder Rodney Bullock sidelined for the night with a stomach bug. Cooley also said Jalen Lindsey played all 45 minutes with a mild temperature.
While his fellow seniors were slowed, Kyron Cartwright did his best to make up the slack with 29 points. Isaiah Jackson added 19 and Alpha Diallo scored 16.
Howard’s 52 points broke the previous PC opponent record of 46 shared by Tom Stith of St. Bonaventure (in 1960) and Dominique Jones of South Florida in 2010. It ties the all-time Big East scoring record, also held by Providence’s MarShon Brooks.
“That kid was Superman in the second half. We didn’t do a really good job on him,” said a disappointed Cooley. “I still thought we had the game in our hands.”
Despite Howard’s heroics, the Friars should have won this game. They led by 79-73 with 1:17 to play in regulation but bungled their final two possessions.
Howard banked in a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to three and then a Lindsey-to-Cartwright pass in the far corner was dropped out of bounds. Howard passed up a three to slice into the lane and score while getting fouled by Diallo with 27 seconds left. His free throw tied the score at 79-79.
PC calmly settled for one shot but when Cartwright made a penetrating move with about six seconds left, Greg Elliott stripped him and the ball went to Marquette with a second left. Andrew Rowsey’s final 3-point try missed to force overtime.
“We didn’t get lucky in the end,” Cooley said. “Very, very disappointed with the loss.”
Howard nailed a 3-pointer to open the extra session and Rowsey followed by swishing his first trey of the night. Those shots spotted Marquette control in the O.T. and they never relinquished it. PC pulled to within 92-90 on two Diallo free throws with 42 seconds left but Marquette ran its offense and Sam Hauser nailed a monster 3-pointer with 14 seconds left to ice the win.
“The good thing is it’s early enough for us to try to come back from a home loss,” Cooley said. “The good thing about our league is we have a great opponent [Top 10 Xavier] coming in here next so you can try to right the ship.”
The loss of Bullock didn’t slow the Friars down very much. PC received a big offensive spark from Cartwright as the Friars made 9 of their first 13 shots to race to a 21-15 lead. Diallo also got off to a nice start but when he picked up his second foul Cooley didn’t have time to sub him out of the game. That proved costly as Diallo was tagged with his third foul with 10:19 to play in the opening half.
On the other end, Marquette’s Rowsey also fell into early foul woes. He came out with two fouls at the 12:31 mark. He returned six minutes later but was guilty of an over-aggressive reaching foul in the backcourt for his third foul with 3:14 left.
The Friars' six-point lead melted after Diallo went to the bench but the group settled down and would cling to a 38-37 lead at the half. The Friars made 51 percent of their shots but had problems keeping the Golden Eagles out of the paint (18 points) and off the foul line where they made all 11 of their foul shots.
Howard was a very quiet 2-of-8 for 10 points in the first half but a different player entirely in the second. He nailed 3-pointers for five of Marquette’s first eight second-half field goals to give Marquette a 58-52 lead. When he hit his sixth of the half, the lead grew to 67-59 inside eight minutes left.
The Friars had no choice but to tighten up on defense a bit and they finally did. The result was a 16-2 run that gave the home team a 75-69 lead with 2:27 left. The Friars led 79-73 with 1:17 left but collapsed down the stretch with the two costly turnovers leading to overtime and more heroics from Howard.