South Bend–The #8 ranked Marquette Golden Eagles are set to face off against #22 Notre Dame tonight in a battle of BIG EAST Titans. The gold-and-blue clad Eagles take a nine game winning streak into the Joyce Center, their longest streak since the 2004-05 season. Buzz Williams’s crew also puts a perfect 6-0 conference record on the line tonight.

But the real key to look out for: how Notre Dame comes out of the gates. The Fighting Irish dropped their first home game in nearly three years Saturday. The loss back then came at the hands of a Steve Novak-led Marquette team. Since then, Notre Dame took 45 straight games from their opponents. That was, of course, until their recent bout against UConn. Luke Harangody is the heart and soul of the Irish, averaging 24.8 points per game and 13.1 rebounds per game.

The Golden Eagles are of course led by their fearless backcourt of Jerel McNeal, Dominic James, and Wes Matthews. But Lazar Hayward will be the leading factor towards a potential MU victory. His 16 point, 17 rebound performance against DePaul carried the team, and they will need a similar night from him to combat Harangody’s skillset.

Jerel is keying in on some milestones. He is two steals shy of second place all-time in Marquette history, behind leader Michael Wilson. He also has 1652 career points, and with just 12 points tonight, will pass Bo Ellis as the 6th-leading scorer in MU history. Dominic James is just 4 points off Jerel’s pace, and could very well pass Ellis tonight as well. Lazar Hayward is 14 points shy of 1000 for his career. He would become the fourth current Golden Eagle to hit that mark.

Brad Galli
MUTV Assistant Sports Director

This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Men's Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.