The Golden Eagles had one absurdly great run and then just mailed in the last 27 minutes.
PART #1 ON MONDAY NIGHT AT FISERV FORUM: #15 Marquette and Central Michigan went to a 15-15 draw for the first nine minutes and 15 seconds of the game. CMU’s Damarion Bonds gets the honors on the final bucket of Part #1, pulling the visitors even with the home team.
PART #2 ON MONDAY NIGHT AT FISERV FORUM: Kam Jones assisted on a Royce Parham three-pointer to trigger a 21-0 run that took three minutes and 21 seconds off the clock. Jones himself accounted for 10 of those points on his way to 12 in the entirety of 40 minutes. Stevie Mitchell did some heavy lifting in there as well, hitting what turned into the only two three-point attempts of the game for him.
PART #3 ON MONDAY NIGHT AT FISERV FORUM: Central Michigan won the remaining 27:10 by a score of 47-34.
Now, as it turns out, that’s not much of a problem. When you’re up 21 after scoring 21 straight out of a 15-15 tie, you can lose the rest of the game by 13 points. That’s how math works, you still win the game.
Absolutely no one walks away excited about it, though.
The Chippewas threw in five points in the final 40 seconds of the first half to make it a 15 point game at the break. Then, after halftime, Marquette didn’t score consecutive baskets until the 7:35 mark, when a Stevie Mitchel putback tip in moved the margin back up to double digits.
Yes, back to, because CMU had closed it to five, 53-48.
After being down 21.
Here’s the good news: That was as close as they got. Was it a little white knuckle-y for the final seven minutes? You betcha. But Central Michigan committed 10 of their 26 turnovers after halftime to help Marquette’s case, and so even when MU’s shots weren’t falling — just 30.8% from the field in the second half — they were able to keep things chugging along with defense.
By the way? Announced in the building: 66 deflections, a new program record.
The goal for each game is 32. Marquette had that by halftime. Heck, they were into the 40s, and they had five kills as well, and the goal on that one is eight.
A lot of the various pieces of this game look like a clear cut Marquette victory. It was anything but that.
Things that did not help: Ben Gold fouled out in 20 minutes. Caedin Hamilton played 13 minutes partially because he picked up two fouls in his first 30 seconds on the floor. Kam Jones picked up his fourth foul with more than 10 minutes to go, and that’s why he finished with just 12 points on 4-for-9 shooting. That was his third foul of the second half alone as the two teams combined for 41 fouls in the game.
Oh, and David Joplin went 0-for-10 from three-point land, and Ben Gold going 2-for-9 did not help much either. Not Those Two were 8-for-17 from long range, and you can absolutely make that walk across the floor for a win.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FS1?
Up Next: Marquette needs to play much, much better the next time they’re on the floor. That will be on Friday night when they visit Maryland for MU’s first road game of the season. Tipoff on FS1 is set for 7pm Central. The Terrapins clobbered Florida A&M on Monday for their third straight cupcake win to start the year.