No. 10 Marquette men’s basketball is a top 10 team once again after wins against then-No. 6 Purdue and Georgia this past week. Here are some thoughts from the week that helped the Golden Eagles to their first 6-0 start since 2011:
Small gym Joplin
David Joplin has seemed to enjoy playing in small gyms in his Marquette career.
It all started two years ago, when the then-sophomore exploded for 23 points in front of thousands of students during the Golden Eagles’ first student-only game at the Al McGuire Center.
Fast forward a pair of years to this season’s student-only game against George Mason, where Joplin detonated once again. Scoring 27 points and shooting 5-for-11 from beyond the arc, the Milwaukee native effectively made his claim for ownership of the 3,700-seat arena.
But this extends much farther than the four walls on 12th and Wells.
A hotel ballroom with a temporary court and bleachers seemed to fit the mold of a ‘small gym’ on Saturday in the Bahamas. The senior forward scored a career-high 29 points on 9-of-17 shooting in Marquette’s 80-69 win over Georgia.
“He’s the guy, of all of our players, I’ve probably been the hardest on all summer, all fall. You’ve heard me talk about, ‘There’s more meat on the bone for him.’ And there’s going to be games where he shoots the ball well, there’s going to be games where he doesn’t,” head coach Shaka Smart said Saturday after the win.
“However, the fact that he was locked in on just trying to help his team in more ways than one, on the defensive end, trying to do what goes into winning. It’s amazing how the basketball gods reward you with made shots when you do that.”
While Marquette isn’t scheduled to play at the Al McGuire Center or in a hotel ballroom again this season, Joplin furthermore proved Saturday that the Golden Eagles are at their best when he is hot.
The Golden Eagles are 10-4 when Joplin scores 15 points or more over the course of the last three seasons. While some nights it may be Stevie Mitchell scoring a team-high 21 points against Purdue, other nights it may be Joplin scoring 29 against a feisty Bulldog team in the Bahamas.
Sometimes it may be Chase Ross tantalizing Stony Brook with a 23-point performance, or some may find it plausible to think that Ben Gold can continue to score in the double digits after doing so in four of Marquette’s first six games this season.
The bottom line, is that Golden Eagles are going to need production alongside Kam Jones if it wants to continue to churn out wins against high-level teams. And so far, the supporting cast hasn’t done too shabby.
Kam Jones wins Big East player of the week, again
Just when you think Kam Jones can’t one-up his previous performance, he finds a way.
Tuesday, it was a 17 point, 13 rebound and 10 assist triple-double — the third in program history and first since 2003 when Dwayne Wade did it against Kentucky in the Elite Eight — that helped propel Marquette past Purdue, 76-58.
“He’s worked his tail off,” Smart said after Tuesday’s win. “When the guys go in the gym they have their little chip on them. We get a report at the end of the week, and Tyler (Kolek) was like through the roof. We’d be so concerned he was overdoing it. Kam is right there with how he’s working.
“He’s always had better ability as a play-maker than people might think. But his role was a little bit different when we had Tyler and Oso (Ighodaro) because those guys were such good passers and distributors, and we needed him to think score, score, score. We still need him to score, but he has the ball in his hands more and we need him to create opportunities for other guys.”
Saturday against Georgia, he might not have one-upped his triple-double performance from Tuesday, but Jones was still impactful in many facets of the game. He finished the game with a season-low 10 points, but still dished out seven assists and continued to help wreak havoc on the defensive end of the floor, coming up with two steals and a block.
𝓑𝓪𝓬𝓴 𝓽𝓸 𝓫𝓪𝓬𝓴
@csgkam led @MarquetteMBB to a win over #6 Purdue with a 17 point, 13 rebound, and 10 assist triple-double! pic.twitter.com/irPBNE3ESc
— BIG EAST MBB (@BIGEASTMBB) November 25, 2024
Smart has a bunch of defensive stalwarts
It wouldn’t be a very bold take for one to say that this is the best defense Smart has had here in his time at Marquette.
The Golden Eagles’ adjusted defensive efficiency (which factors in points allowed per 100 possessions) currently ranks ninth best in the country according to KenPom, which is the highest a Smart-coached team has been since 2014.
Marquette has been violent on that end of the floor this season, no question about it. The Golden Eagles have forced their opponent into committing 14 or more turnovers in every game this season. In comparison, they themselves haven’t turned the ball over 14 times or more yet this season. That equates to a +50 turnover margin, ranking fourth in the country.
One of the ringleaders of all the havoc is Ross. After being inserted into the starting lineup this season, people have gotten to see a lot more aggressiveness from Ross on a more consistent basis, given he’s averaging 33.8 minutes a contest.
“It’s just inside of him, that’s in his DNA,” Smart said when asked about Ross’s disruptive play on the defensive end. “He’s Kareem Ross’s son, who was a defensive back at Texas Tech, and a heck of a good one.
“He’s a playmaker, Chase, on the defensive end, you know. And I think it’s a fine line that he’s continuing to learn between, you know, taking maybe wreckless chances, and taking the right chances. But Chase is better at that than me or anyone else coaching our team or following our team, so we’re going to let him continue to develop that field because he’s excellent at it.”
Through six games, Marquette is averaging a ridiculous 12.2 steals per game, the sixth best mark in the country. In comparison, it was averaging 9.3 through the first six contests last season.
The Golden Eagles’ defense was good last year, but this year it has gone from good, to great.
What’s on tap?
Marquette welcomes Stonehill (3-4) to Fiserv Forum on Wednesday for a Thanksgiving eve showdown. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. CST. Then, Western Carolina (2-2) comes to town for a 1 p.m. CST tip off on Saturday.
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at matthew.baltz@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.