KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Marquette's three senior men's basketball players had quite a beginning to their college basketball careers.
Nearly four full seasons ago center Jim McIlvaine, forward Damon Key and guard Robb Logterman entered Cameron Indoor Stadium for the Warriors' first game of 1990-91 against sixth-ranked Duke in the preseason NIT. Two hours later, the then-freshman trio exited Cameron with an 87-74 loss that wasn't even that close.
Marquette's next game that year wasn't any easier: a trip to Kansas to face the Jayhawks. After a KU pasting, the Warriors were 0-2 and on their way to an 11-18 season under second-year head coach Kevin O'Neill.
Nobody knew it at the time, but Marquette's young, rebuilding program had just faced the eventual NCAA finalists in its first two games of the season.
Tonight at Thompson-Boling Arena, the Warriors are just three wins away from becoming NCAA finalists themselves. Sixth-seeded Marquette meets second-seeded Duke here in an NCAA Southeast Regional semifinal at 7:38 p.m.
Top-seeded Purdue takes on fourth-seeded Kansas in the second semifinal at approximately 9:58 p.m.
"What those two games told us was that we were going to lose," O'Neill said Wednesday. "Duke and Kansas spanked our bottoms like a baby. The things those early games did to us was show us we had a long way to go."
"It was exciting playing at Duke in our first college game," said Key. "We thought we'd come in college and dominate, but Duke brought us to reality fast."
In 1994, reality for the Warriors is that they have a legitimate shot at next week's Final Four in Charlotte. Nobody foresaw Marquette knocking off powerful Kentucky last week in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, but that convincing 75-63 win served notice that the Warriors are not to be taken lightly.
"Marquette is a team a lot of people have underestimated," Duke center Cherokee Parks said.
After watching the Warriors soundly defeat Kentucky, one of the hottest tournament teams in the nation and a popular pick for the Final Four, the Blue Devils will not be among those to underestimate the Great Midwest regular season champions.
But Duke poses a much different -- and more difficult -- challenge for Marquette. Two major aspects of Kentucky basketball -- a relentless full-court press and a perimeter-oriented attack -- played right into Marquette's strengths. The 5-11 Miller, with better than average quickness and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 3:1, was ideal to handle the press. McIlvaine, the nation's leading shot blocker, and the bulky Key (6-8, 250 lbs.) dominated the skinny Wildcats inside.
Marquette won't be able to exploit those same things against Duke tonight. But the Warriors have made it this far in 1994 by playing to their strengths regardless of the opposition, and they don't plan to stop against the Blue Devils.
"We have to play to our strengths, and that's Damon and Jim," Miller said. "We feed off them."
Indeed, establishing McIlvaine (13.7 points per game) and Key (15.8) must be a point of emphasis for the Warriors. The two Marquette big men will need to get off to a good start so Duke's pressure defense has to back off. That would free up three-point threat Logterman (44 percent from behind the arc) and slasher Roney Eford (10.2 ppg).
"With Duke's defense, we'll have to establish our inside game," O'Neill said. "Whoever gets the advantage in the paint will have the advantage as the game wears on."
Key, with his bulk, may have an advantage on Duke's Antonio Lang if the two match up, but the defensive-minded McIlvaine may have trouble with Parks.
"McIlvaine's a little different in that he doesn't have a lot of post moves," Parks said. "But the moves he has are very effective."
"We need McIlvaine to score a little more," O'Neill said. "I think he'll step up for us this weekend."
As for the Blue Devils, another balanced performance like the ones they got in two subregional wins in St. Petersburg last weekend would suit them fine.
In wins over Texas Southern and Michigan State, three different players scored more than 20 points in at least one game, a big confidence boost for a team struggling to complement All-America Grant Hill.
Like most teams, Marquette will have a difficult time guarding the versatile Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year, but O'Neill said that the athletic Eford will start the game across from Hill.
"About the only thing Grant Hill can't do is throw the ball off the top of the arena, bounce it off the floor, throw it around his back . . . nothing but net," O'Neill said.
For O'Neill, finding a Marquette player to match up with Hill is nearly as difficult as fending off reporters' questions about his career path. According to the local Knoxville paper, O'Neill is the leading candidate to take over the Tennessee job from the departed Allan Houston.
O'Neill fielded several inquiries Wednesday from local writers, eager for the scoop on the young, up-and-coming coach.
"I am flattered by the articles and the speculation, but we're just concentrating on basketball," O'Neill said. "When we got to Knoxville, some of the players said, `Hey, University of Tennessee, pretty nice.' Eford might be glad I left. He thinks I'm the only one holding him back from 45 points a game."
NOTES: Marquette leads the nation in field goal percentage defense (35.6). O'Neill said that the Warriors' defensive philosophy differs from Duke's constant man-to-man pressure defense. If a team is good from the outside, Marquette pressures more, but the Warriors would play off the perimeter people against a team with an inside-oriented attack.
"We try and make people not good at what they're good at," O'Neill said...Parks, who strained his back in the subregionals in Florida last weekend, said he'll be fine for this week's games. "It was a little nagging injury that wasn't really much," Parks said. "Playing a game, then having a day off for the possible next one gives it an opportunity to rest well."
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