NEW YORK – It was always going to be a tall task for the Marquette men’s basketball team in the Big East tournament championship game on Saturday night.
The Golden Eagles were playing their third game in three days, all without their most important player in floor general Tyler Kolek. The first two games were grueling, physical affairs that left many MU players limping and bandaged. Oh, and the Golden Eagles were playing one of the best teams in the nation in second-ranked Connecticut, which boasts a matchup nightmare in 7-foot-3 behemoth Donovan Clingan.
So it wasn’t surprising that the third-seeded Golden Eagles, ranked No. 10 in the country, ran out of gas in a 73-57 loss to the top-seeded Huskies at Madison Square Garden.
“I thought our guys had phenomenal fight,” MU head coach Shaka Smart said. “Went toe-to-toe with a team that’s probably played better than anyone in college basketball.”
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Box score: Connecticut 73, Marquette 67
Donovan Clingan too much to handle
MU held Connecticut scoreless for the first six minutes and 33 seconds. But MU only had a 2-0 advantage by the time the Huskies scored a field goal.
The Huskies finally clicked into gear, and they shot 17 for 27 (63%) in the second half to pull away.
“Just running out of steam,” MU’s David Joplin said. “I think we guarded them extremely well the first half, and we just have to keep up those same efforts throughout the game. It just made it difficult as time went on.”
Clingan finished with 22 points and 16 rebounds. He is the first player since Georgetown legend Patrick Ewing in 1984 to have at least 20 points and 15 rebounds in a Big East final.
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“He puts you in a bind as a team defensively because it’s hard to guard him with one guy,” Smart said. “And the way we defend pick-and-rolls, sometimes smaller guys get on him, and that’s a problem. But he does that to a lot of people.”
Connecticut’s Donovan Clingan shoots over Marquette’s Ben Gold during the first half on Saturday night.
Oso Ighodaro joins other banged-up Marquette players like Stevie Mitchell
MU won the Big East tournament last season, and this season the Golden Eagles players and coaches have said the most important thing is a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
How healthy the Golden Eagles will be when they play next week is the biggest question, with the roster largely made up of the walking wounded.
“When you play in this league with the physicality with which teams are allowed to play, there’s going to be a lot of different bumps and bruises and things that come up,” Smart said.
Kolek, the unanimous all-Big East first-team player and likely consensus All-American, sits atop the list of concerns. He missed his sixth straight games since suffering and oblique injury on Feb. 28, but Smart said before the Golden Eagles opened Big East tournament play “the plan is absolutely for him to play next week.”
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Another injury cropped up on Saturday when big man Oso Ighodaro banged his left knee in the second half. Smart pulled Ighodaro with just over seven minutes remaining as a precaution.
“He was struggling getting up and down the floor, so I took him out because he didn’t look like he was moving well,” Smart said.
Ighodaro did not want to make a big deal about it.
“I’m good,” Ighodaro said in the MU locker room. “I just hit my knee a little bit. I’m good”
MU starting guard Stevie Mitchell was wincing as he moved around the locker room. He played with his left shoulder wrapped after taking a wicked hit while drawing an offensive foul against Providence in the semifinals Friday.
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“Warrior,” Smart said. “That’s the status update on him. He’ll probably play in our next game. Not probably, almost definitely. But he’s also banged up. He’s got an assortment of different things.”
The injury report doesn’t stop there. Chase Ross, elevated to the starting lineup in Kolek’s absence, aggravated a nagging left leg injury in the semifinals.
MU finds out its NCAA Tournament matchup on Sunday. There will be a lot of ice and rehab for the Golden Eagles before they take the court in the first round on Thursday or Friday.
“Nobody is 100% at this time of year,” Mitchell said. “I think we need to take these next few days to get our bodies right. Get back to as close to 100% as they can be. That’ll be good for us.”
Marquette turns attention to March Madness
Despite the maladies and the loss in the title game, there were positives for the Golden Eagles from their time in New York.
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Freshman guard Zaide Lowery had some nice moments with more playing time because of Kolek’s injury, including five points in 14 minutes against Connecticut. He showed he wasn’t intimidated by playing in front of a sellout crowd at an arena known as “The Mecca of Basketball.”
“Just really be ready, stay ready,” Lowery said. “Once you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.
“Came in this weekend, did the best I could to help my team win. We came up short, but we got bigger things ahead of us.”
Kam Jones and Ighodaro made the all-tournament team, along with Clingan, St. John’s guard Daniss Jenkins and Providence guard Devin Carter. The Huskies’ Tristen Newton, who had 13 points and 10 assists against MU, was named most outstanding player.
Jones scored a team-high 13 points against the Huskies, and he had 54 over his three games at Madison Square Garden.
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MU hasn’t been to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since 2013. Jones wants this team to end the drought.
“We want to be playing our best basketball every game, starting with the first round,” Jones said. “It’s single elimination, and it’s non-negotiable to bring your best every game in March Madness.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Donovan Clingan helps UConn beat Marquette 73-57 in Big East final
As of early 2025, the Connecticut State Police was facing a staffing shortage of roughly 300 troopers compared to the more than 1,200 troopers the department had in its ranks over a decade ago. This is due largely to retirements, resignations and a shrinking applicant pool.
Recent academy classes are helping slowly rebuild staffing, but Gov. Ned Lamont and police leadership say Connecticut still needs substantially more troopers to meet public safety demands. More recently, news outlets reported the department had 938 troopers.
This spring, troopers negotiated a 4.5% wage hike with state officials. Troopers’ base pay is on average about $116,000 per year, but that rises to $175,000 per year once overtime is included.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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CT Mirror partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims.
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Reginald David is the Community Engagement Reporter for CT Mirror. He builds relationships across Connecticut to elevate community voices and deepen public dialogue around local issues. Previously, he was a producer at KCUR 89.3, Kansas City’s NPR station, where he created community-centered programming, led live event coverage for major events like the NFL Draft, the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl Parade, and Royals Opening Day, and launched KC Soundcheck, a music series spotlighting local and national artists. Reginald has also hosted special segments, including an in-depth interview with civil rights leader Alvin Brooks and live community coverage on issues like racial segregation and neighborhood development. He began his public media career as an ‘Integrity in News’ intern at WNPR in Hartford.
Meteorologists are predicting the next storm system in Connecticut could bring a couple inches of snow this weekend.
WTNH reports snow will start late Saturday night and continue into Sunday morning.
“There is pretty good agreement with light snow amounts statewide with up to around 2″ expected,” WTNH says.
Find out what’s happening in Across Connecticutfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
WFSB reports long-range models have been “all over the place with the development of a coastal storm.”
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According to WFSB, some show the system moving to the south of Connecticut, which would make the impact on weekend plans “minimal.” Another model, however, shows a greater impact on Connecticut, which could mean a “coating to an inch” of snow, WFSB reports.
Find out what’s happening in Across Connecticutfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
WFSB as of Thursday also predicts the timing would be late Saturday night through Sunday morning.
The National Weather Service as of Thursday has increased the odds of snow in this weekend timeframe to 50 percent, up from 30 percent.
In the short term, it is going to be very windy today.
The National Weather Service has advisories for northern and southern parts of Connecticut due to high winds, with possible gusts of up to 50 miles per hour.
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Today, Friday and daytime Saturday will be clear and dry, according to the National Weather Service, with high temperatures starting in the low to mid-30s and gradually warming.
“Saturday is the pick of the weekend, as it will be dry and relatively milder,” WFSB reports. “While we could start bright, cloud cover will be on the increase with temps that peak between 35 and 40. Sunday will be colder as temps only reach the upper 20s and lower 30s.”
The National Weather Service indicates the chance for snow begins around midnight Saturday.
Read More:
Here are the forecast details for northern Connecticut via the National Weather Service:
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Today: Partly sunny, with a high near 31. Breezy, with a west wind 18 to 21 mph, with gusts as high as 43 mph.
Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 20. West wind 14 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 43 mph.
Friday: Sunny, with a high near 32. West wind 13 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph.
Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 16. West wind 5 to 10 mph becoming light southwest in the evening.
Saturday: Partly sunny, with a high near 36. Calm wind becoming southwest 5 to 8 mph in the morning.
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Saturday Night: A chance of snow, mainly after midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 23. Southwest wind around 5 mph becoming west after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.
Sunday: A chance of snow before 1 p.m. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 29. Northwest wind 5 to 11 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%.
Here are the forecast details for southern Connecticut via the National Weather Service:
Today: Mostly sunny, with a high near 34. Wind chill values between 20 and 25. West wind 16 to 18 mph, with gusts as high as 43 mph.
Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 22. Wind chill values between 10 and 15. West wind 14 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 41 mph.
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Friday: Sunny, with a high near 34. Wind chill values between 10 and 20. West wind 11 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph.
Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 22. West wind around 6 mph becoming calm after midnight.
Saturday: Partly sunny, with a high near 39. Light west wind becoming southwest 5 to 10 mph in the morning.
Saturday Night: Snow likely after 1 a.m. Cloudy, with a low around 26. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.
Sunday: A 50 percent chance of snow before 1 p.m. Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 33.
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NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (WTNH) — An emergency room doctor at the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain just returned to Connecticut after running seven marathons in seven days on seven continents — including Antarctica.
Dr. Lisa Bienia Kenton just finished running 183.4 miles in seven days to raise money for her niece and nephew who have a chromosomal disorder. Covering that much ground in just a week doesn’t allow for much time to sleep.
“We average about three hours a night,” Dr. Bienia Kenton said. “So, 21 hours we slept total for the seven days.”
It’s called the Great World Race. 60 runners started in Antarctica, then South Africa, then Australia, then the United Arab Emirates, then Portugal, then Colombia and finished in Miami.
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“In Antarctica, it was -30°C with a 30 mile an hour wind chill,” Dr. Bienia Kenton said. “So that was by far the most grueling and kind of gnarly things we experienced. Like, sometimes you don’t even know if you’re moving forward.”
Dr. Bienia Kenton is part of an elite group of female runners — only 166 have run a marathon on every continent and only a fraction of them have done it in seven days.
“I met a lot of great, strong women,” Dr. Bienia Kenton said. “A lot of moms, same demographic as me, and we kind of just powered each other through.”
She had support from her husband and sons, who encouraged her to do the race. She trained by running to her son’s baseball games and around the field before returning home. She said her husband got her time off work to run the race after talking to her boss, who met her in Miami and ran the last marathon with her.
She said the experience of running the Great World Race left her body bruised, but it changed her life.
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“I left there with this life, inner self or inner feeling of confidence, like I can tackle the world,” she said. “And maybe that’s going to wear off over time, but right now I’m riding that high.”
