The start to the 2014-15 Marquette Basketball season had not been what the team wanted. They entered their game on Tuesday against Arizona State with a 4-4 record that included a shocking loss last month at home to Nebraska-Omaha, a measly 38 point effort in their last game with in-state rival Wisconsin, and they had lost sophomores Deonte Burton and John Dawson just two days ago after the two announced their intentions to transfer at the end of the semester.

On Tuesday night, the potential answer to most of Marquette’s problems showed up and announced his presence as the leader of the program. Indiana transfer and Germantown native Luke Fischer scored 19 points in 33 minutes off the bench in his Marquette debut to help lift the Golden Eagles to a big 78-71 win over the visiting Sun Devils from the Pac-12 Conference. Sophomore Guard JaJuan Johnson led all scorers with a career high 22 points also off the bench.

The impact of Fischer in the low post was very evident on both sides of the ball. Fischer, the 2013 Wisconsin Mr. Basketball, pulled down nine rebounds and blocked five shots, those five blocks put him in the team lead after just one game. Marquette had a total of 14 blocks as a team in their first eight games. The biggest key though is that the Golden Eagles finally have some size in the paint. They had been using 6-foot-7 junior Steve Taylor Jr as their center since he was the tallest man on the team to this point.

Marquette shot 57.1% from the floor largely in part to the combined 19-for-27 shooting of Johnson and Fischer off of the bench. It was their best shooting percentage since a 57.8% performance against Xavier last season in the Big East Quarterfinals. The Golden Eagles host Alabama A&M in a nationally televised game on Friday Night at the BMO Harris Bradley Center. They will be looking for solid performances over their next three before Big East play starts on New Year’s Eve at DePaul.

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About the author
Matthew Evans
Matthew is an American sports journalist based out of Kennewick, Washington. He is a Managing Editor for VAVEL USA as well as Co-editor of the soccer section.