Marcus Denmon stars as Missouri Tigers down Villanova Wildcats 81-71: NCAA Basketball Recap
Missouri Tigers entered the NCAA Basketball Tournament as 25th ranked team. However, just after eight games, they have jumped to 10th, and with the way they are going at the moment, they might end up in the
last three.
On Tuesday night, the Tigers collected their 8th consecutive win of the tournament by beating Villanova Wildcats 81-71 in front of the capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden. Their star player, Marcus Denmon had an
outstanding time on the court yet again and produced a mammoth tally of 28 points.
Marcus continued from where he left in the last game and was clearly the difference between both teams tonight. He was aggressive, accurate and exhibited decent defence as well. His 18 points out of 28 came in the form of downtown
strikes and apart from that, he pulled down 5 rebounds and dished out 3 assists to end a monstrous night.
Ricardo Ratliffe was also impressive and completed a double-double by scoring 17 points and pulling down 11 rebounds. Kim English, who has had a quiet tournament so far also chipped in with his 15 for Tigers.
For Wildcats, Maalik Wayns scored 14 including 3 for 7 from the three-point range. Darrun Hilliard, who came off the bench late, added 13 while Dominic Cheek accumulated 12 points. Mouphtaou Yarou and Jay Vaughn Pinkston also played
their part well and chipped in with 11 and 10 points respectively. Unfortunately for them, all their combined effort was overshadowed by Marcus’s brilliance in the end.
Missouri started the proceedings with a 9-5 run. However, the Wildcats quickly responded with a 7-2 surge, capped by Darrun Hilliard’s three in next few minutes to get in front 12-11.
The next few minutes saw an intense battle between both sides as pendulum kept on shifting from one side to the other. Neither team managed to dominate the game completely as the scores got tied on many instances. The scores were
levelled at 21 all with 5 minutes remaining when Marcus, in partnership with Ratliffe and Kim English, bolted a crucial 12-2 run to make it 33-23. The onslaught continued until the very end to ensure that the Tigers held a 42-29 advantage going into the second
frame.
Both sides displayed aggressive and accurate long range shooting in the opening minutes of next frame - four from Tigers and two from Wildcats.
Pinkston and Yarou tried hard to get Wildcats near but Marcus was unstoppable from the other side and kept on scoring to ensure his team was always in front. A timely 13-6 run by Wildcats with eight minutes remaining brought them
back in the game as scores reached 67-60, still in the favour of Tigers.
Someone needed to step up from Wildcats in last few minutes to get the team home; however it was not to be.
Instead, attack came from the other end in the shape of Marcus and Ratliffe, who fittingly scored last few points to seal the victory for their team.
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