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Break up Marquette

MILWAUKEE — Marquette coach Buzz Williams was concerned his team would lose its edge when he gave the Golden Eagles five consecutive days off before Christmas.

Lazar Hayward and Jimmy Butler made sure his worry was unwarranted.

Hayward scored 23 points and Butler added 16, leading Marquette to an easy 102-62 victory over Presbyterian on Sunday.

“We were saying maybe we want to have that (break) again, so we have got to come out and show Buzz that just because we go home doesn’t mean we won’t come back with energy and intensity, to keep pushing the way we left off,” Butler said. “We all showed that we are mature enough to handle a few days at home with family.”

After giving his team time off, Williams gathered the team for a Christmas night practice, and kept the team together all day Saturday. He even had a two-hour practice at the Bradley Center on Sunday morning before the game against Presbyterian.

“I woke them up at 6:30 this morning,” Williams said. “I thought our energy was great, and we were extremely unselfish. We did really good things more consecutively than we have over the last month.”

Marquette (9-3) took a 21-point halftime lead, and Presbyterian (2-11) never got closer than 18 the rest of the way. The Golden Eagles extended the lead to 30 points midway through the second half.

and took a 97-56 lead on David Cubillan’s 3-pointer with 3:32 to go.

“They beat us in different ways, which makes them tough,” Presbyterian coach Gregg Nibert said. “Lazar had a heck of a game. They scored in a multitude of ways, which makes them really difficult to guard.”

Marquette had six players score in double figures. Darius Johnson-Odom had 15 points, Maurice Acker and Dwight Buycks added 14 each and Cubillan had 10.

Zach Faircloth scored 15 points and Khalid Mutakabbir added 14 for Presbyterian, which has lost six consecutive games.

It was the fifth time this season that the Blue Hose have lost by at least 30 points and third time they lost by at least 40.

Marquette topped 100 points for the first time this season.

The game was Marquette’s final tuneup before opening Big East play Tuesday night against No. 6 West Virginia. The Golden Eagles have four games (West Virginia, No. 8 Villanova twice and No. 14 Georgetown) against ranked teams to start conference play.

“We need everybody,” Butler said of his team, which only has nine scholarship players. “Everybody has a certain role that they have to fulfill on the team. If one person doesn’t fulfill his role, he is putting a lot of pressure on everybody else.”

Presbyterian has redshirted three of its top players — all juniors — in anticipation of being more competitive in the 2011-12 season, when it is eligible for postseason play for the first time. The Blue Hose have lost games at Clemson, Illinois, Bradley, North Carolina, Ohio State and Dayton, and play at Florida on Wednesday night.

“We’re playing a really great schedule, and it’s making us better,” Nibert said.

Marquette made 12 of its last 15 shots in the first half and took a 49-28 halftime lead on Butler’s three-point play with 0.5 seconds left. Cubillan threw a full-court pass to Butler, who made the layup, was fouled and converted the free throw just before halftime.

Presbyterian, playing the fourth of seven consecutive road games, used nine players, all but one a freshman or sophomore.

“We’ve got three starters sitting on the bench,” Nibert said. “We lose 102-62 but I got six freshmen out there, two sophomores and a junior.

“Our guys are down, which I love how they take it, they want to win. But we’re not ready to come into Marquette after one day of practice with a bunch of freshmen and think we’re going to come in here and beat Marquette.”