The Golden Eagles fell into a hole, took forever to find their way out, and then went stone cold on the road against a top 10 opponent.
Look, it’s not a complicated sport.
#5 ranked Marquette scored consecutive baskets just three times in the first half on the road against #6 Iowa State. They fell behind by 10, then 11, then 12, then 13 points, hitting that one for the first time with 3:57 left in the first half. With that in mind, Marquette was probably lucky to be down just nine points at halftime.
It’s not that the Golden Eagles’ offense was truly struggling. In fact, they turned the ball over just five times in the first half. They didn’t put buckets together, but they were doing just fine at 1.12 points per possession. The problem was they couldn’t get stops at all on the other end, as the vaunted Iowa State offense was working to an incredible degree, up to and including Keshon Gilbert outdoing his season average to this point of the year with 18 points in the first 20 minutes.
And then, coming out of the locker room, Marquette didn’t have the answers for the Cyclones that we’ve seen from the Golden Eagles so many times under the direction of Shaka Smart. The lead went back to double digits, and back to 13 points on a bucket from Milan Momcilovic with 16:20 to go.
And then, slowly, the lead dwindled. First, five straight from Marquette on a Royce Parham triple and two Stevie Mitchell free throws. Signs of life. ISU responded, nudging the margin to 10, 61-51, with 11:28 to go.
Kam Jones time. Three-pointer, jumper, assist on a Parham three, layup. 10-0 run, less than two minutes off the clock, 61-all, 9:07 to play in a brand new ball game.
14-0 Iowa State run that left just 3:36 left.
Not enough on this night. Not enough with 6-for-21 shooting from Kam Jones. Not enough with Chase Ross held to just 10 minutes after rolling his ankle in the first half and not returning. Not enough with less than 27% three-point shooting in the second half. Not enough with just 12 Iowa State turnovers to take advantage of.
I never though Marquette needed to play a perfect 40 minutes of basketball to beat this Cyclones team. This MU squad is good enough to not need to do that….. but they needed to be better than they were on this particular night in Ames.
Up Next: Marquette will look to bounce back from their first loss of the 2024-25 season when they return home to host #11 Wisconsin on Saturday. Tipoff is set for 12:30pm Central time, and Fox will have the broadcast for that one. The Badgers are 8-1 themselves, just like the Golden Eagles, and they are coming off a 67-64 home loss to Michigan on Tuesday.