Skids snapped

It’s too cold for a long intro. Let’s just get right to Monday’s college hoops news.

1. Marquette finds its flow

Look, when Dwyane Wade shows up to your game, you win. I don’t make the rules.

Everyone knows that. Especially Wade, who spoke to the team before their 87-74 win over Villanova on Monday.

“He said, ‘You guys have to win today,’" Marquette coach Shaka Smart. “Obviously that can go both ways, but I thought our guys did play with a level of desperation and commitment to what goes into winning even as Villanova was raining 3's in the first half.”

No. 17 Marquette (12-5, 3-3 in Big East) was coming off a two-game skid in which star guard Tyler Kolek had struggled finding his shooting stroke, going just 2-of-19. But he scored 21 and dished 11 assists, which seemed to keep the entire squad humming. They had their most efficient offensive game of the season, scoring 1.33 points per possession, with just 3 turnovers, 60 points in the paint and 24 total assists. (Also key? Kam Jones topped 20 again.)

That wind yesterday? It wasn’t just the artic blast. It was the collective sigh of relief from the team.

"This can be a frustrating game when you have high expectations. Very, very sky-high expectations. It can be frustrating, like, why are things not going well for me or for us? And that's for a player, that's for a coach, that's for someone at any level,” Smart said, via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “I think, for us, it's interesting, maybe a rediscovery of whether you want to call it desperation, humility, the fact that 'should' doesn't matter. That helped us today."

Good thing, too. Because the defense wasn’t sharp (it allows 1.13 ppp) except for a terrific second-half stretch where Villanova (11-6, 4-2) went scoreless for nearly 5 minutes.

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