Coach Cara Consuegra praises Marquette’s effort in loss to UConn
After a 71-56 loss to No. 1 UConn Feb. 14, Marquette’s Cara Consuegra praised her team’s improvement. The Huskies beat MU by 36 points in December.
- Despite injury setbacks, the Golden Eagles finished tied for third in the Big East conference.
- Marquette will be the No. 4 seed in the league tournament, facing fifth-seeded Creighton.
- Three players, Skylar Forbes, Halle Vice, and Lee Volker, were named to Big East all-conference teams.
The Marquette women’s basketball team returned every player from last season’s roster, a rarity in college hoops, but that doesn’t mean that everything went smoothly.
The Golden Eagles were beset by bad injury luck even before the season began, with J.J. Barnes and Aryelle Stevens being lost after knee surgeries. Even after that, MU only had two games this season in which head coach Cara Consuegra had all her available players. The Golden Eagles lost another key player for the season when point guard Olivia Porter, who followed Consuegra from Charlotte to MU, went down with a knee injury on Feb. 1.
The Golden Eagles (18-11, 12-8 Big East) still finished tied for third in the conference, and they will be the No. 4 seed in the league tournament and play fifth-seeded Creighton (15-14, 11-9) on March 7 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.
MU had three players named to the Big East all-conference teams for the first time.
Juniors Skylar Forbes and Halle Vice were named to the first team, while fifth-year player Lee Volker landed on the second.
Forbes was fourth in the league in scoring at 15.5 points per game, and the 6-foot-3 forward led the league in blocks for the second straight year at 1.81 per game. She was also named to the all-defensive team.
Vice led the Big East with 10 double-doubles, and averaged 13.8 points and 8.8 rebounds per game. Her 55.4% shooting ranked second in the league.
Volker averaged 12.2 points and shot 43.3% on three-pointers.
