The Marquette men’s basketball team began their 2022-23 campaign with a home victory over the Radford Highlanders by a score of 79-69.
Here’s the breakdown of tonight’s action from Fiserv Forum.
Game MVP: Oso Ighodaro
Coming off an improved season from last year, junior forward Oso Ighodaro got his third season in the blue and gold off to a good start as he lead all players in scoring with 19 points on 9-for-12 shooting. Ighodaro also added seven rebounds, one assist and one block.
“The guards were finding me, I was rolling and they were making great passes finding me in the paint,” Ighodaro said. “They gave me the confidence to stay aggressive throughout the whole game.”
Despite fouling out late in the second half, head coach Shaka Smart liked the effort that Ighodaro brought most of the night.
“It was great to see Oso attacking and playing with energy, I do think he got a little tired and was affected by foul trouble in the second half, but (he) really played well,” Smart said.
Key Stats:
- Ighodaro and sophomore guard Kam Jones accounted for 37 of the 79 Marquette points and shot a combined 13-for-21 (61.9%).
- The Golden Eagles held the Highlanders to shooting 5-of-23 from beyond the 3-point line in the game (20%). Radford shot 30.7% from three-point land last season.
- Marquette shot 13-for-17 from the free-throw line in the second half.
Notes:
- Marquette begins 1-for-1 in their deflection goal as they racked up 39 on the night.
- After scoring 10 points in the first half on 4-for-6 shooting, Jones was unable to find the bottom of the net in the second half.
- Despite shooting 1-for-5 from the field, junior guard Tyler Kolek finished with nine points, nine assists and eight rebounds.
- First-year guard Kenyon Giles scored 15 points while shooting 7-for-11 from the field for Radford.
- Radford shot 12-20 from the free-throw line.Graduate student forward Souleymane Koureissi went 1-for-4 from the line.
Quote of the Day:
On Thursday, the team will be playing their first game in the Al McGuire Center since 2018 and the first regular season game since 2014.
“We’ll practice in there, we didn’t play any games in there last year, so (it’s) a little bit unique,” Smart said. “The basket it still 10 feet high, the court is still 94 feet (long).”
Next Up:
Marquette (1-0) will be back in action on Thursday to take on Central Michigan at the Al McGuire Center at 7 p.m. CST.
This article was written by Jackson Gross. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @JacksonGrossMU.
