It is time for Kam Jones to alter the list….. for the second straight season??
By now, you should be more than familiar with our series of regularly updating leaderboards for various Marquette Golden Eagles sports accomplishments. Keep checking back to that link in the previous sentence for our charts as the seasons continue to churn through history and MU’s various teams continue to create new memories and accomplishments.
Here, we’re taking a look at the best scoring single seasons in program history.
For a long time, no one was ever able to clear 690 points. Tony Smith’s 1990 season came the closest in Marquette history, literally stopping one point short of that number. He had bested George Thompson’s single season record, set back in 1968, so that was a whole big deal at the time, I’m sure. At the time, it was just the second season of more than 630 points in program history.
And then Dwyane Wade just went cruising right past Tony Smith and became the first player in MU history to score 700 points in a season. Even at the time, that was a bit of a shocker, as Wade had tallied just 571 points as a sophomore one year previous. That set a MU sophomore season record at the time, sure, but I don’t think anyone was thinking that Wade would find a way to cram nearly another 140 points into a season. Of course, a Final Four run helped that out a great deal.
And so no one ever really thought that Wade’s number would be touched. It took a guy who then turned into one of the greatest shooting guards in NBA history to be the first 700 point player in program history, and he did that thanks to a Final Four run as well. It felt untouchable, to a certain extent, as much as “beat the old record by 21 points” can feel untouchable.
Cue 2018, when Markus Howard fell six points short of 700 all while Andrew Rowsey actually beat Dwyane Wade’s record. He tallied up 716 points, wrapping up his run with 29 points as Marquette lost to Penn State in the NIT quarterfinals. That time it felt like there was a chance that Howard could return the next year and at least have a chance to break Rowsey’s freshly set record. He had 694 with Rowsey, what could he do without Rowsey taking up some of the scoring space?
Turns out, the answer is become the first Marquette player to score EIGHT HUNDRED POINTS in a season. He detonated Rowsey’s record, finishing the year with 851 points. Absurd. Ridiculous. Get a thesaurus and pick more words, they’re all right. One year later, Howard became the second player to hit 800 points in a season, as he finished the regular season with 806. There’s a chance that he could have beaten his record if there had been a postseason, but that was 2020 and Marquette never played a Big East tournament game before everything closed down.
And now, it’s December 2024….. and did you realize that Kam Jones had the 12th best scoring season in program history last year? He did! He put up 20 points against NC State to end up with 620 points, slipping right past Lazar Hayward in 2010 and Dean Meminger in 1971, both of whom had 616.
Right now, Jones has 244 points through 12 games. He is on pace to get to 650 points by the end of Marquette’s guaranteed Big East tournament game. That would get him into ninth place all time, past Wesley Matthews’ senior season of 641 points. George Thompson’s old program record is within sight for Jones if Marquette starts stacking up postseason games, and at over 20 points a game right now, Jones could become the fourth man to tally 700 points in a year if MU plays a total of four tournament games between the BET and the NCAA tourney.
If he wants to start averaging 30 points a night and take a run at Markus Howard’s program record, I’m not going to argue that much about it…… but seeing as Shaka Smart is very open about saying that Kam Jones isn’t being graded by the coaching staff on his scoring, it seems unlikely, right?
Here’s what the chart looks like after Marquette’s December 18th game against Butler.