The Golden Eagles had to work through some less than perfect (but maybe illness stunted) defense to beat the Skyhawks by 35 anyway.
This is one of those “okay, I know what it is supposed to look like, and this is not what it is supposed to look like….. but it’s all going fine anyway so whatever?” things for Marquette men’s basketball on Wednesday night at Fiserv Forum.
YOUR #10 ranked Marquette men’s basketball team, at a glance, cruised to victory over Stonehill, 94-59. I know, it’s hard to say anything particularly critical of a 35 point victory.
BUT I’M GOING TO DO IT ANYWAY!
Facts are facts: Stonehill beat Marquette on back door cuts repeatedly in this game, and the Skyhawks finished the game with an effective field goal percentage of precisely 50%. The Golden Eagles never quite got the defensive end of things going in the right direction all night, struggling all 40 minutes long to rack up a kill even if they were getting the deflections that they desire.
It just never looked like the vaunted Marquette defense.
Except, mathematically, it was. The Golden Eagles allowed just 0.86 points per possession in this game, partially because they did induce a turnover on over 26% of possessions. That’s a lot! It’s higher than Marquette’s season average in that department! They just struggled to do it three times in a row over and over and over again. MU also locked Stonehill off the offensive glass for a majority of this game, including getting through the entire first half without giving up a second chance to the Skyhawks.
In short, while the failures might be notable and obvious, it was just part and parcel of the process in this one. It all ended up working out…. and as it turns out, this might have actually been Marquette’s best effort tonight. Turns out, according to David Joplin, the whole team is sick after their trip to the Bahamas over the weekend.
David Joplin, whose voice is sounding ragged, said the whole Marquette team came home from the Bahamas with a bug. #mubb
— Ben Steele (@BenSteeleMJS) November 28, 2024
By the way? Any concerns that we may have had about the defense missing those cuts? Yeah, didn’t really matter because the offense was GOING.
Powered by a 10-for-12 shooting night from David Joplin, Marquette shot 60.7 from the field in this one. Thanks to 10-for-21 three-point shooting, the Golden Eagles finished the night with an effective field goal percentage of 68.9%. Just straight fireballs the whole time, and a 10-0 run late in the first half pushed the margin from 41-29 (aka a margin where you’re not really worried) to 51-29, and pretty much out of reach for the Skyhawks for the remainder of the proceedings.
Amazingly, David Joplin’s 27 points — two short of the career high he posted against Georgia over the weekend — are kiiiiiinda the secondary story here. Freshman Damarius Owens, who had played 18 minutes total this season, all in the last three games, got a big pile of minutes here, and he made it very clear that his ceiling as a basketball player is absolutely absurd:
14 points on 5-for-8 shooting, including a perfect 3-for-3 behind the arc, four rebounds, two assists, a block, and a steal.
I’m not saying that he needs the ball all the dang time or whatever, but it seems clear that Shaka Smart now has an extra dimension to his basketball team that they did not have through the first six games of the year.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and Fox Sports?
Please watch all the way to the end and then watch Caedin Hamilton’s absolutely absurd pass in transition to Tre Norman. It’s ridiculous.
Up Next: Marquette has one more tune up game before things get real and stay real for the rest of the season. First tip against Western Carolina is set for 1pm Central time, and FS2 will carry the broadcast. The Catamouts are 2-3 on the season, but 0-3 against Division 1 opponents after losing 91-57 to Florida State on Tuesday in Tallahassee.