Monday night had it all.
The best Marquette men’s basketball can offer was on display when it went on a 21-0 blitzkrieg in the first half to take a 36-15 lead and appear to ride off into the sunset, a sluggish start nothing more than a long-forgotten speed bump on the serene road to victory.
The worst Marquette can offer was on display when its six-minute scoring drought in the second half let Central Michigan crawl back into contention with a 10-0 run, its once-practically insurmountable lead whittled down to five points with 10 minutes remaining.
The best of Marquette was visible when it posted a single-game record 66 deflections — a treasured statistic in the eyes of head coach Shaka Smart — handily beating both its goal of 32 every game and previous best of 56.
The worst of Marquette was visible as its offense wilted in a manner similar to a turtle retreating into its shell whenever Kam Jones stepped off the court — which given he picked up his fourth personal in the thick of the Chippewas’ comeback and sat for five crucial minutes, was longer than the Golden Eagles would’ve liked.
The best was Stevie Mitchell’s 17 points, nine of which came at game-clinching moments in the second half. The worst was almost detrimental foul trouble. The best was six different Golden Eagles earning multiple steals — led by Chase Ross who hounded his way to four.
One could go on and on.
It was a game whose unsightliness felt like it turned black hairs gray and made eyes flip-flop between wide open and virtually shut too many times to keep track before finally ending with a 70-62 Marquette (3-0) win that induced nothing more nor less than a deep sigh of relief from the blue & gold and its faithful.
“We talk a lot about winning ugly with the team we have this year,” Mitchell said. “We know that every game shots don’t go in, we can still win. Shots do go in, we can still win.
“But when it comes down to we just got to really get to the nitty gritty every single day, so we always give ourselves the opportunity to win. We feel like last year we lost some games because we didn’t focus or put our emphasis on being able to win ugly.”
Speaking of ugly, the Golden Eagles spent the first 10 minutes aimlessly wandering the court on the offensive end, having produced a shooting clip that read 0-for-5 from deep and 3-for-10 from the field.
Marquette got the looks it wanted — open threes — but couldn’t convert on any of them. By the end of the game the box score showed a shooting performance of 20-of-55 (36.4%) and 10-of-36 (27.8%) from deep with a team-worst 0-for-10 on 3-pointers from David Joplin and a slightly less worse 2-for-9 from Gold.
“All the adversity that we’ve gone through the last two games is good,” Smart said. “It’s good to deal with tough shooting nights.
“It’s good for us to deal with opponents that won’t go away and continue to fight. We’re still, in a lot of ways, a work in progress figuring out offensively who the playmakers are on our team beyond Kam. I thought Chase did a nice job. Stevie had a really good game.”
It wasn’t until first-year Royce Parham, in a similar fashion to the season-opener, came on the court and scored a quick three before following it up with a Fiserv-awakening dunk that Marquette began to operate as normal.
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“He’s a phenomenal offensive player. I mean, this guy is going to score a ton of points here,” Smart said of Parham, who finished with nine points in 13 minutes before leaving early due to cramps. “Just a matter of him gaining a comfort level with everything we do.
“And then getting sturdy enough in all the other areas of the game besides putting the ball in the basket, which every freshman has to go through. But make no mistake about it, he’s one of our best offensive players already.”
After that emphatic dunk, Jones fired 10 points in three minutes and Mitchell piled on two 3s of his own. In the blink of an eye, the Golden Eagles went on a 21-0 run, had 44 prized deflections and were breathing easy with a 42-27 halftime advantage.
Then came all the worst in one long procession. Six scoreless minutes after six missed shots, which followed 10 in a row for Central Michigan, which followed Jones’ fourth foul and subsequent benching, which resulted in a 5-point Chippewas’ deficit and a case of upset fever quieting Fiserv to a peep.
“I think we all know Kam’s our guy on offense,” Mitchell said. “So when he goes out, the mindset changes. Like, all right, we all need to step up offensively or be a little more aggressive because he’s not in right now.
“That group’s played together multiple times in practice, so we didn’t panic or anything. We knew what each other’s capable of.”
Jones eventually checked backed in, Gold hit a crucial 3-pointer to make it 65-56 Marquette with 3:30 remaining and Mitchell went to work down in the paint to finish 5-for-8 overall and 5-for-7 from the line — not to mention his 100% from deep thanks to his two 3s in the first half. And the Golden Eagles got the job done.
Deep sigh sighed. Relief restored. Onto Maryland.
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at jack.albright@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.