The Golden Eagles opened up the throttle in the first half and never looked back.
Things happen when Marquette and Providence square off in men’s basketball. Just weird thing after weird thing after weird thing. And so, with the Golden Eagles coming off nine straight days without a game due to the Christmas break, and said most recent game saw them blowing a double digit lead on the road before squeaking out a win, it felt like throwing New Year’s Eve on the road at the AMP in Rhode Island was just asking for something weird to happen between these two teams.
Something happened, but it wasn’t “player’s brother walks onto the court” or “bat in the arena causes a stoppage weird. It was just run of the mill basketball weird.
The weird in this case was Marquette going on a 26-2 run across nearly eight minutes of the first half. You don’t see that a lot. You don’t see 21-0 runs all that often, and that was the last six-ish minutes of that run. The score was 28-10 Marquette with 10:10 left in the first half, and the whole thing had tones of “wait, is this over already?” Not because of the run or the 18 point lead, but because of the nine Providence turnovers to that point of the game.
MU then won the rest of the first half 19-10 for a 47-20 margin at halftime. Providence had 14 turnovers at that point, which meant that 44% of their possessions had ended with Marquette holding the ball instead of anyone in a Friars white jersey sending it on a trajectory to the rim.
The way I saw it, there was one goal for the second half: Don’t let the lead slip below 20. Remember I mentioned MU letting that double digit margin disappear last timeout? This lead was almost too big to screw up, so the focus had to be on something smaller. I don’t know if that’s what Shaka Smart told his guys, but they did accomplish that goal. Kam Jones scored to push the margin to 30 for the first time with 15:40 left to go, but with 11:30 showing on the clock, PC’s Wesley Cardet slashed the margin to just 21. That came on a free throw, Cardet missed the back end of a pair, and Marquette scored the next eight straight for a 29 point lead. Corey Floyd scored with 5:21 to go to get the lead to exactly 20 points, but the game was pretty much decided and the Friars never got it under that point. In fact, Zaide Lowery dunked with 90 seconds left to cap a 12-0 Marquette run with the reserves on the floor and give the game the largest margin, 32 points.
At one point in this game — in the first half! — there was audible booing on the FS1 broadcast, not because Marquette had done something to irritate the PC boosters at the AMP, merely because the Friars were bad. At the end, we heard the best possible sound through the broadcast: A very noticeable WE ARE MARQUETTE chant, as the Rhode Island residents had departed the building to get started on whatever festivities they could manage after this shelling.
Marquette only needed 18 points from Kam Jones to win big here, but the little homie from Memphis added 10 assists, three rebounds, and three steals for a very nice all around game and the third double-double of the season for him. Stevie Mitchell (14), David Joplin (11), and Zaide Lowery (11) all got into double digits as well, while Joplin’s six rebounds led the Golden Eagles in that department. MU had 15 steals to create Providence’s 22 turnovers here, and Mitchell had one-third of those swipes all by himself. Dude was a MENACE in this game.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FS1?
Up Next: Marquette returns to action this coming Friday when they’ll open up 2025 with a home game against Creighton. Tipoff at Fiserv Forum is set for 8pm Central, and FS1 will have the broadcast. The Bluejays are coming off a 57-56 home win over St. John’s on Tuesday afternoon.