Powered by a career high 29 points from David Joplin, YOUR #15 ranked Marquette Golden Eagles men’s basketball team picked up an 80-69 victory over Georgia on Saturday down in the Bahamas. The win moves Marquette to 6-0 on the year, and it’s the first time that they have been 6-0 since 2011-12.
I’m going to dispense with the beat-by-beat type of recapping here. If you want to catch what I thought about how things were going as they were happening and the beat-by-beat of it, that’s what the live blog is for. Go check that out if you want.
To a certain extent, it was very appropriate that this game was contested on the Battle 4 Atlantis court that will be in use for the next week for the women’s and men’s tournament events even if this game wasn’t actually part of either one. There was a lot of slipping and sliding around all game long, which helped contribute to a combined 31 turnovers between the two teams. Things got worse as the game went along in that regard, as there were just 10 total turnovers in the first half.
Part of the inflated second half numbers is because Marquette ratcheted up the pressure in the second half. They forced Georgia into 13 miscues in the second half alone, and that ended up being 36% of the Dawgs’ possessions after intermission. That left MU having forced a turnover on nearly 26% of possessions in the game, and it’s going to be real hard to beat Marquette when they’re doing that to you.
It wasn’t smooth sailing everywhere else, by the way. Stevie Mitchell, Chase Ross, and Kam Jones all picked up two fouls late in the first half, and that led to the Golden Eagles just trying to gut the half out after taking an eight point lead with less than four minutes left. They didn’t make it, as Georgia briefly took a lead before Joplin canned one of his six three-pointers in the game right before the horn.
It looked like Marquette was going to completely blow Georgia off the face of the island in the second half, as they started things off with a 15-5 run out of the locker room. They couldn’t maintain that, though. The lead did build to 15 at one point with just under 13 minutes to go, but that ended up MU’s biggest lead of the game.
Maybe because of the fouls sitting in the back of everybody’s mind, but MU’s defense never quite got engaged in the second half, even after that stellar start. Allowing 0.94 points per possession in the final 20 minutes isn’t bad, you’re going to win a lot of games allowing that for 40 minutes, but Georgia was able to find ways to make Marquette feel them as the second half went along. Asa Newell got an and-1 with 8:25 to play that left the contest at just a three-point margin, 60-57. This was a game that Marquette had to figure out how to win as it went along even though they had big runs in various places.
Ultimately, the game was won with defense, even if MU did score 1.14 points per possession and had an effective field goal percentage of 59.5%. The Golden Eagles allowed just three points, just one field goal, in the final 4:57. All three came in the final minute after Georgia had already started fouling to extend the game with Marquette up 12 with 80 seconds to go.
Kam Jones finished with a foul hampered 10 points, and he missed both of his three-point attempts…. and that’s the second straight game he’s gone oh-fer. Still, hard to complain when he had a game high seven assists. Ben Gold had 14 points on a breakout shooting day of 4-for-9 three-point shooting, including a pair in that run to open the second half. Chase Ross had a great across the board game: 14 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and a game high five steals. Stevie Mitchell is the only starter who didn’t score at least 10, but he had seven to go with six rebounds to tie Gold for the team high, plus three assists and four steals.
Joplin, though…. man. This was a Chicken Wing game for him, embodying the “eat the entire wing” metaphor that Shaka Smart has laid out for him. 29 points on 9-for-17 shooting, including 6-for-11 from long range, easily beating the allegations that he was lost in the weeds forever. But! He also had five rebounds, a steal, and a block. Yes, he had to be The Scoring Guy here, but that did not stop him from doing other stuff, and he didn’t completely lock in to only shooting threes all game long, either.
Why am I going on at length about the performances of these guys? Partially because most people probably didn’t watch this game because it was behind the FloSports paywall, but also partially because Marquette got almost nothing from their bench here.
Six points, six rebounds, and one steal is the sum total of what Marquette got from their bench in this game, and Zaide Lowery was the only reserve to hit the 10 minute mark of playing time. This can not continue. These guys have to start giving the Golden Eagles more than this on a regular basis.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FloSports?
Up Next: Marquette’s going to get 80 minutes of action to try to figure out how to get their bench to start contributing more in games like this. They’ll be back on the mainland and in Milwaukee for a Wednesday night contest against Stonehill, and then they’ll host Western Carolina on Saturday afternoon. The Skyhawks are 3-4 on the year after beating Bryant, 67-66, on Thursday, while the Catamounts are 0-2 against Division 1 competition following a 82-69 loss at Wake Forest back on Tuesday.
