| South Florida doomed by dismal 1st half |
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| Written by Admin |
| Wednesday, 06 February 2013 17:49 |
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TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A dismal first half doomed South Florida against No. 24 Marquette. Todd Mayo and Vander Blue both scored 13 points to help Marquette beat South Florida 70-47 on Wednesday night. Mayo had all of his season-high 13 points in the first half as Marquette (16-5, 7-2 Big East) grabbed a 39-16 halftime lead. ``We dug ourselves a bad hole in the first half,'' South Florida coach Stan Heath said. ``Once they got off to that lead, it was hard to overcome that. Too good of a team to let them breakout to a lead,'' Junior Cadougan added 11 points for Marquette, which was coming off a 70-51 loss to then No. 12 Louisville last Sunday. South Florida (10-12, 1-9), which has lost five in a row, got 14 points from Zach LeDay. The Bulls made just 5 of 18 shots, and had 14 turnovers in the opening half. Marquette scored 23 points during the session off turnovers. ``It's very frustrating being down, but we knew why we were down, it's because of the turnovers,'' LeDay said. ``We need to fix that. We need to fix that, period.'' The Golden Eagles shot 53.8 percent (14 of 26) over the opening 20 minutes. Marquette has dominated the all-time series, winning 19 of 22 games against the Bulls. The Golden Eagles won the other meeting between the teams this season, 63-50 on Jan, 28, behind 30 points by Blue. ``Obviously, I don't want to reveal some of the specifics of the changes that we made, but I thought we executed them pretty well,'' Williams said. ``And I think it looks better, too, when you make shots. It wasn't like it was James Naismith or anything as far as the adjustments.'' Cadougan opened the scoring with a 4-point play, part of an early 13-3 run by the Golden Eagles. Mayo had a pair of 3's during a 15-3 surge as Marquette extended its advantage to 32-13. The Golden Eagles took their biggest lead of the opening half, 38-13, with 2:10 left on Chris Otule's basket. South Florida got within 20 early in the second half before Marquette again went up by 25 on Cadougan's long-range jumper. Marquette later extended the lead to 29, at 62-33, when Blue scored on a layup with 6:08 remaining. ``They're a dangerous team, a team with certain guys that want to play, especially down here,'' Blue said. ``You get down here, you get caught up in the weather and then you play in an arena with 2,000 fans. It's all a setup, so you want to make sure that you come out and stick to your principles and do what you have to do.'' The announced crowd was 5,186. |
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