The Golden Eagles exploded past the Badgers in the second half to get Shaka Smart his first ever win over MU’s in-state rival
For 20 minutes on Saturday afternoon at Fiserv Forum and on the Fox network, two top 15 teams took turns prodding and poking at each other, seeing what worked, seeing what they could do, seeing what they had to change.
At halftime, #11 Wisconsin held a 39-37 advantage, and both teams could rightfully say either “if we just clean that up, we’ll win” or “if we just keep going like that, we’ll win.”
A pretty good 20 minutes of basketball, worthy of attention of any neutral party tuning in to watch.
And then #5 Marquette went to the locker room, talked about that first 20 minutes, figured out exactly what they needed to clean up to win.
Step #1: Turning off John Tonje’s water. The Colorado State transfer was doing John Tonje Things in the first half, getting seven of his 12 points at intermission by getting to the free throw line to flip them in. As we talked about in the preview, Tonje has thrived at doing exactly that this season, and that was a thing that MU could not afford to let him do all game long.
So, they just stopped letting him get to the line. Tonje attempted absolutely zero free throws in the first half. In fact, he sat down after committing a hooking offensive foul with 17:23 to play and didn’t come back until there was 11:18 to go. He didn’t attempt a shot of any kind in the second half until he scored a layup with 7:11 to play……. and that bucket pulled Wisconsin within 10, 72-62. He would attempt just four more shots for the rest of the game, missing all of them and finishing with 14 points. No free throws, just two points after halftime. Turned him off like a spigot. Shouts to Stevie Mitchell.
Step #2: Cranking up the defensive intensity in general. Marquette allowed 1.18 points per possession in the first half. That’s not great. Neither is allowing a bucket on each of Wisconsin’s first three possessions of the second half. 45-42 Wisconsin, 18 minutes to go.
28-10 Marquette run, powered by seven of the eight turnovers Wisconsin committed in the second half, all in about a nine minute stretch. The peak of it was a 13-2 MU run that flipped the game from 61-53 Marquette to 70-55.
I looked up at the scoreboard after Stevie Mitchell sank his free throw on the and-1 to close the run. I didn’t actually know what the score was, I just knew Marquette was on a heater. I actually shouted out loud, “WOAH!” when I saw the 15 point margin.
And yeah, the game was over there, with eight minutes and change to go. MU could afford to just trade buckets with the Badgers the rest of the way, and even then, they didn’t do that. Marquette closed the game with four straight stops, one last kill, to provide us with the 88-74 final margin.
There was a touching moment in the final minute as Shaka Smart checked his trio of seniors out of the game with the result in hand. As they came to the bench, Smart gathered them together, along with senior walk-on Cam Brown who has been there since the beginning of the Shaka Smart Era in Milwaukee, and they all huddled up for something. I don’t know what, but it was very clearly important to Smart and to his four players that they acknowledged what had just happened: They snapped their personal three game losing streak to Wisconsin.
I have gotten all the way here without saying Kam Jones’ name a single time. He was spectacular in this game, making it very clear that he shall be a force to be reckoned with by every single team that lines up against Marquette this season. 32 points on 12-for-21 shooting, including 3-for-7 from long range, two rebounds, six assists, a career best four steals, and not a single turnover in 32 minutes. Straight gas, all heat, and Wisconsin couldn’t do a damn thing about it. UW head coach Greg Gard admitted as much after the game, saying “I’m not surprised by anything. Exactly what I saw today live is what I watched on film.” And that might not even be the most important part of what he was doing today. That might have been Jones’ dedication to the details. In the second half, he splashed a three-pointer to get him to 30 points on the day, and it put Marquette up 82-69 with just over four minutes left. Did he celebrate his bucket, as you would reasonably expect he would? Not much at the very least, because his attention was getting back on defense, and all but nearly shoving his teammates into position so they could get another stop and get one step closer to wrapping up the W.
They did get the stop, by the way, forcing John Tonje to miss on a layup, and Ben Gold hauled in the rebound.
We can also not ignore the contributions of Chase Ross, who had 12 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, a block, and two steals, all after being listed as doubtful for this game in the wake of twisting his ankle after 10 minutes against Iowa State on Wednesday. Was it his career best game? Probably not, but it was the best 36 minutes (!) that he could give MU on this particular day.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and Fox Sports?
Up Next: A well earned week off. Well, a week off from basketball, at least. It’s Finals Week at Marquette, so no games for the next six days. But after that, Marquette will return to action when they close out non-conference play for the season with a visit to Dayton. That game is set for a 6pm Central time tipoff on Saturday, December 14th, and CBS Sports Network will have the broadcast. Dayton toppled Lehigh, 86-62, at home on Saturday, to move their record on the year to 8-2 with losses to North Carolina and that same Iowa State team that beat MU earlier this week.