After a one-week hiatus due to finals week, I’m back with another notebook. No. 9 Marquette men’s basketball dropped its second game of the year this week after suffering a second half collapse in a 71-63 loss at Dayton.
Here are some thoughts from the 0-1 week:
Bench inconsistencies show up yet again
The Golden Eagles’ bench has been a talking point in this notebook multiple times this season.
It’s had some good moments — like scoring 31 points against Stonehill and then following that up with another 37 against Western Carolina.
But it’s also had some bad ones as well — like scoring just four points on eight field goal attempts in Saturday’s loss against the Flyers.
As it has many times this season, Marquette’s offense looked lost without Kam Jones on the floor once again in Dayton. Jones was the only Marquette player that played over 15 minutes to finish with a positive plus/minus (+5).
“As a team, we’ve got to be able to play with more poise when he’s out of the game, and we need more guys that create action for us,” Shaka Smart said after the loss.
The Golden Eagles need more production from their bench. Take the first-years for example.
Royce Parham scored 17 points in 23 minutes at Iowa State, with Damarius Owens scoring 11 points in 25 minutes.
In comparison, Tre Norman has scored a total of 16 points in 116 minutes of game time this season. Zaide Lowery has only scored 24 in 139 minutes of action.
Now this isn’t to say Norman and Lowery should be expected to consistently score more than the first-year’s, because they shouldn’t. However, it is unfair to rely on two first-year players to come off the bench and lead it in scoring every single night.
Simply put, the sophomores need to step up when its their turn, and so far, they haven’t.
Uncharacteristically bad second-half leads to loss
When Chase Ross drove coast-to-coast for a layup in the final seconds of the first half to put Marquette on-top 36-26 heading into the locker room, it felt like mostly everything was going right for the Golden Eagles.
Then, the second half started.
After Kam Jones hit a 3-pointer 21 seconds into the second period to extend Marquette’s advantage to 13, he picked up his third foul on the other end just a minute later, sending him to the bench for the next three minutes.
“First of all, he needs to not foul,” Smart said. “That’s the first one.”
What ensued was a 10-0 Dayton run that the Golden Eagles just never really recovered from.
On average, Marquette had outscored its opponents by an average of nearly 10 points in its first 11 games. Wednesday, the Flyers wiped the floor with the Golden Eagles in the second half, outscoring them 45-27.
When Smart was asked after the game what his defense could’ve done better, his answer was simple.
“Everything.”
“I thought we allowed the chaotic and frantic nature of the game to affect our clarity of mind on the defensive end,” he continued. “It’s a real lesson for us, because you have to have that. You have to have true connectivity as a group of five out there, and we did not have that in the second 20 minutes.”
Marquette turned the ball over eight times in the second half of Saturday’s game, and did not score a single point off a Dayton turnover in those 20 minutes either.
What’s on tap?
The Golden Eagles return home for the start of Big East play on Wednesday, as they get set to welcome Butler (7-4) to Fiserv Forum. Tip-off for that one is set for 8 p.m. CST.
Then, it’s back on the road for another away test at Xavier (8-3) on Saturday. Tip-off is scheduled for 11 a.m. CST.
The Musketeers will be without their leading scorer Saturday, Zach Freemantle (16.9 ppg), after it was announced Monday morning that he will be out indefinitely with a lower body injury.
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at matthew.baltz@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.