The Golden Eagles go to College Park, shake off 2 early Kam Jones fouls and some bad first half shooting, and pull off a win.
There’s no such thing as style points in college basketball, just the points on the scoreboard.
That’s probably a good thing for YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles, as the #15 ranked team in the country went into College Park on Friday night, puzzled their way through 37.9% shooting in the first half, gave back six points of an eight point lead with less than 60 seconds to go, and ended up with a 78-74 victory over Maryland. It was the first loss of the season for the home team, while the win keeps MU unbeaten at 4-0 on the season.
I did not watch the first half of the game closely. I was at the Marquette/Georgetown volleyball match at the McGuire Center, but I had my iPad. Watch a point, look at the basketball game, hear the whistle, look up, watch a point, repeat. What I saw was neither side leading by more than four points at any time, and after the fact, I realized that Marquette trailing 34-30 at the break was probably better than it looked. After all, if you can stay within four points while shooting 37.9% from the field and a kind of bad 3-for-11 from long range, that’s not too bad. The fact that Maryland shot nearly 58% just adds to the point. No matter what was going on — and that includes separate stretches of 1-for-10 and 1-for-8 from the Golden Eagles — that didn’t slow MU down on the defensive end, as their quest for deflections turned into nine Maryland turnovers.
By the time MU’s 3-0 sweep of Georgetown wrapped up and I drove home and got setup on my couch, Marquette had taken a lead briefly in the second half and the Terrapins had just tied it up at 49 on a layup from Ja’Kobi Gillespie. All told, it’s like I missed nothing even though there was only 11:35 left in the game.
Three-point shooting from Marquette’s bigs came alive as both Royce Parham and Ben Gold canned threes to keep the Golden Eagles out in front, but free throws from Derik Queen and a three from Rodney Rice flipped it to a three point Maryland lead with under nine minutes to go. It was then time for the Kam Jones Show. He got quieted a little in the first half after two early fouls, but when the going got tough, Kam Jones got going. He scored all 12 Marquette points in a 12-2 run, and all 10 of a 10-0 run as part of that, first hitting some threes, and then starting to hunt for guys to foul him when he went to the rim. 68-61 Marquette, 4:44 to play.
We’ll have to always wonder what would have happened if Maryland had a timeout for the final four minutes. The Terrapins called a desperation timeout after a scramble for a loose ball that turned into the under-4 timeout, but that one was their last available stoppage for the night. Chase Ross scored after a Stevie Mitchell steal. Mitchell himself cleared out space underneath the room…. somehow…. and put one up and in for a 72-66 lead. David Joplin missed a three-pointer badly, but that meant that the stray ball went right in front of a charging Mitchell, up and in for a textbook example of the Stevie Mitchell Putback Outta Nowhere, and boom: 74-66, 1:07 to go. All MU has to do is run out the clock.
Right?
Maryland was in a hurry, especially with no timeouts, but free throws from Mitchell made it 76-69. The Terrapins rained in a three, Marquette couldn’t inbound in five seconds, and DeShawn Harris Smith scored. 76-74, most of that eight point lead was gone, and there was just 36 seconds to go. Maryland poked the ball free, that turned into a runout for Gillespie…… and he missed.
Kam Jones missed both of the ensuing free throws.
David Joplin fouled Harris-Smith going to the rim…. and HE missed two shots. Jop came up with that rebound, all is forgiven, Stevie Mitchell showed the ice in his veins at the line, Golden Eagles by 4, and that’s your ball game. Finally.
Kam Jones finished with a game high 28 points on 10-for-18 shooting, showing the world why he should be considered for All-American status. He didn’t do it alone though, as Stevie Mitchell finished with 18 on 6-for-10 shooting, and Royce Parham came off the bench to add 10 points in just 13 minutes of action. Joplin had more rebounds (a team high 8) than points (7), and his three-point woes continued as he went 1-for-7 here.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and Fox Sports?
Up Next: The Golden Eagles will return to action next Tuesday night when they return to Fiserv Forum to host a Big Ten team instead of visiting one. That one will be Purdue, as the Boilermakers come to town off of an 87-78 win over #2 Alabama on Friday. Both Marquette and Purdue are in the top 15 right now, but I’d have to imagine that Purdue might have a single digit ranking by the time that new poll comes out on Monday.