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Twenty-four hours after Seton Hall and Marquette spent 40 minutes in a clinch, Notre Dame gave the Golden Eagles space, and that allowed Jerel McNeal and Maurice Acker to connect on enough haymakers to land the Golden Eagles in the semifinals with an 89-79 victory on Thursday night in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals.

The first half seemed to go to form for the favored Irish. Notre Dame led by six at the break, out-rebounded Marquette by three and did all that despite Big East Player of the Year Luke Harangody playing just seven minutes after picking up a second foul with 10:35 left and sitting out the remainder of the half.

When a rare Tory Jackson 3-pointer put the Irish up, 44-34, with 18 minutes remaining, Notre Dame looked poised to take the rubber match of the season series and get back in the tournament semifinals for the second straight year.

But a funny -- or perhaps disturbing, based on your perspective -- thing happened on the way to a breezy victory: Marquette started knocking down shots. Seton Hall's pressure permitted a lot of trips to the foul line for Marquette on Wednesday, but conceded few open looks. Notre Dame doesn't play with the same defensive tenacity, and the Golden Eagles grew more comfortable from the perimeter with each passing swish.

Jerel McNeal, a player known for tenacious defense and irresistible drives to the basket, suddenly added dead-eye shooting to his impressive arsenal. McNeal scored seven points during a 13-2 MU run that gave the Eagles a 47-46 lead at the 15:51 mark.

"He's really the key for them," said Notre Dame coach Mike Brey. "We talked about really being aware of him, trying to have Jackson on him to play man-to-man to take him away. It's easier said than done."

McNeal didn't stop once Marquette took the lead. He scored a career-high 28 points, 20 in a second half that saw his team score 57. The performance is perhaps McNeal's form of personal vengeance after watching his teammates lose in last year's quarterfinals to Pittsburgh, unable to play because of a wrist injury.

"It was one of the hardest times of my life," said McNeal about having to sit out last season's final weeks. "I thought about it all year. So now, I'm right back here. The year went really fast for me, and I'm just excited to be here and playing and helping my team out."

"It was very hard for us to watch him not have an opportunity to play here last year because of his injury," added Coach Tom Crean. "And I think he, in the last two nights, has made up for lost time -- there's no doubt about it."

Harangody tried to get his team back in the game with eight straight points, but McNeal answered, first with a 3-pointer to tie the score, then a righty bank shot and finally another trey to give Marquette a 57-54 lead, one his team would never relinquish.

With Marquette continuing to find the bottom of the net easily accessible, the smallest man on the floor made sure Notre Dame would not come back.

Maurice Acker, the 5-foot-8 sophomore transfer from Bowling Green, poured in 10 points in a four-minute span. His 3-pointer from the left corner gave MU a 76-66 lead with 3:32 left and what turned out to be the winning margin. After the last three and a subsequent Notre Dame timeout, his teammates mobbed Acker at midcourt.

"That just shows how we are as a team," said Acker. "If somebody's doing well, we're going to acknowledge that. It's just a good feeling knowing that we've got different teammates that are behind our back."

The key question entering the game was how Notre Dame would choose to defend Marquette. The Irish are not quick enough to play man against the Golden Eagles' stable of lightning-quick guards, so they decided to do what most similarly constructed teams would have done -- play zone and force Marquette to shoot over it.

The Golden Eagles have a well-earned reputation as a bad shooting team, but Marquette was actually in the top quarter of the conference in 3-point shooting during league games this season. Most of that stigma is spillover from last season when the Golden Eagles seemed as likely to make a jumper as to miss the basket entirely. Add to that Marquette's 3-for-17 night from deep against Seton Hall, and Notre Dame's other potential defensive strategy -- playing Marquette's guards tight on the perimeter and potentially opening up driving lanes -- would have been a poor risk for Brey and his staff.

"We're not quick enough to take away both the perimeter and the inside," said Brey. "We kind of packed it in a little bit in some different zones, and they made jump shots. You've got to hope a couple of those come off."

Marquette's 36 percent success rate on 25 3-point attempts was almost squarely on its conference average -- the Eagles did hit 6-of-12 (50 percent) in the second half. Hidden behind all that shooting was Marquette's improvement on the boards in the latter 20. MU out-rebounded Notre Dame, 21-12, in the last 20 minutes, something that Notre Dame could ill-afford to allow. Despite a bigger frontline comprised of Harangody, Rob Kurz and Zack Hillesland, the Irish were out-fought on the backboards by Lazar Hayward (six rebounds in the second half), Ousmane Barro (five) and 5-foot-10 Dominic James (four).

"I thought in the second half we created momentum because of our defense, because of our communication, because of our ability to stay in the backboards," said Crean.

Marquette's mixture of aggressive rebounding and hot shooting in the second half was a diabolical one for the Irish, who have to wonder whether an inability to stop teams on defense will lead to another early exit in next week's NCAA Tournament regionals.

As for the Golden Eagles, they move on to their first-ever Big East semifinal to play a Pittsburgh team they hammered, 72-54, in Milwaukee a month ago. Marquette will enter the game with confidence and more than a puncher's chance, but what kind of donnybrook will a Pittsburgh-Marquette matchup create?