When the final buzzer sounded Tuesday night at the BMO Harris Bradley Center, Marquette walked off the floor with a 80-62 victory over San Jose State. Despite a seemingly lopsided score, head coach Steve Wojciechowski wasn’t very impressed with his team’s performance.
“We got off to a great start, but I thought we let up a little bit,” Wojciechowski said. “We thought it was going to be easy, and it wasn’t. Our guys responded in time to turn it around in the second half.”
Marquette jumped out to a 31-7 lead in the first 9:58, including 17 points coming from sophomore Sandy Cohen. He shot 4-for-5 from 3-point range in the first eight minutes.
“I haven’t had a game like this since I’ve been here,” the Seymour native said. “I was really just taking open shots.”
After Cohen’s blazing start, his teammates fell in love with the long range shot, jacking up 19 3-point attempts in the first half and making only seven of them. The missed shots allowed the Spartans back into the game as they went on a 24-9 run to close the half.
“Sandy got off to a great start and I think everybody though they were going to see a bigger basket,” Wojciechowski said. “We have to play through Henry (Ellenson) and Luke (Fischer). I don’t know how many times I have to say it.”
Ellenson had an up-and-down game, scoring in bunches as he often does. He finished the game with 20 points and eight rebounds, although he shot 8-of-18 from the field and was 0-for-3 from long range.
“Henry’s an inside-outside player and we want him to be able to follow his instincts,” Wojciechowski said. “He didn’t shoot it well from the perimeter tonight, but he does in practice and he will (in the future).”
Fischer, a redshirt junior, netted 11 points and grabbed 13 rebounds to quietly play to his third double-double performance of the season. His seven offensive boards bailed out the team’s 17 misses from long range. Overall, the team shot just 40.6 percent from the floor.
Cohen finished with 24 points, including six made threes, while redshirt sophomore Duane Wilson scored 14 points and shot 4-of-9 from 3-point land.
After facing cupcake opponents the past four games, the Golden Eagles will take on their true challenge in the non-conference schedule Saturday when they head to Madison to take on rival Wisconsin.
