The Marquette men’s basketball team got back to its winning ways Tuesday night against inter-city rival Wisconsin-Milwaukee, defeating the Panthers 71-51.
After a second-straight late collapse against North Carolina State Saturday, the Golden Eagles appeared to solve their defensive woes, holding the Panther to just 19 first half points on 7-for-17 shooting.
“We have done nothing since Sunday morning at seven (in the morning) except work on defensive things,” coach Buzz Williams said.
Marquette found somewhere else to struggle, however, taking until the 2:44 mark to grab a 10-point lead against a far less talented UW-Milwaukee team. Similar to the first half against N.C. State, a few well-timed 3-pointers bailed the Golden Eagles out and made the first half performance look better than it was.
Marquette entered the break leading 30-19, with seven turnovers to just six assists.
Surprisingly quiet in the first half was senior forward Lazar Hayward. After struggling against N.C. State (6-of-16 from the field, five turnovers), Hayward turned in just four points and two turnovers in the first half against UW-Milwaukee.
Both Williams and Hayward attributed the star forward’s off night to being the focus of UW-Milwaukee’s scouting report. Hayward, for his part, said just what his coach would want to hear.
“I don’t really care too much about my numbers and what I put up,” he said. “I just want to win games.”
Out of the break, the Golden Eagles slowly built upon their 11-point halftime lead, largely because of the play of sophomore Darius Johnson-Odom. The guard had flashed his range often in this young season (52.9 percent from beyond the arc for a team-high 18 3-pointers), but he had not displayed the all-around scoring potential Williams spoke of. Against the Panthers, though, Johnson-Odom dropped 15 points in 23 minutes.
“Coach, he wants me to be aggressive,” Johnson-Odom said. “We don’t have that many players, as far as coming off the bench, so he wants me to be aggressive anytime I can. But not in a bad way as far as getting on the system and as far as running our offense.”
Adding to the effort for Marquette was junior guard Jimmy Butler, who finished with a game high 19 points. Butler continued his absurdly efficient scoring going 6-for-6 from the field. He is now shooting 62.3 percent on the season.
Next up for the Golden Eagles is their other in-state rival, the Wisconsin Badgers, Saturday in Madison. Tip off is set for 4 p.m.
