No. 7 Marquette men’s basketball (11-4, 2-2 Big East) lost 78-75 to Seton Hall Saturday at the Prudential Center.

Here are three takeaways from the Golden Eagles’ third straight road loss:

Road games prove to be an offensive struggle

Marquette’s road-game shooting has left little to be desired this year.

Even in their one road win over Illinois, the Golden Eagles shot 5-for-17 from beyond the arc. Saturday, Marquette finished 43.1% overall and 35.7% on threes.

Sophomore forward Ben Gold finished 0-for-3, Tyler Kolek shot 1-for-3 and Kam Jones went 3-for-10 on 3-pointers.

“The way you get out of the shooting slump is you focus on everything else. You focus on defense, focus on your teammates, focus on getting lost in the fight. And then you jump up and shoot the ball like you know how,” Golden Eagles head coach Shaka Smart said.

Marquette also had trouble at the free-throw line, where it went 9-for-13 (69.2%).

Physicality serves as kryptonite

Marquette has been hampered by teams that play very physical. It was noticeable after the Golden Eagles’ losses to both Wisconsin and Providence, and the first half shoulder injury to Chase Ross Saturday only made the problem worse.

By the end of the game, Marquette got out-rebounded 43-25 and went 9-for-23 on layups.

Smart said the Pirates’ physicality is what caused the mis-hap on the final pass of the game from Oso Ighodaro to David Joplin.

“That last play on the side. It was just, we were not able to go do what we wanted to do because of physicality out there,” Smart said. “And that has been an issue.”

Seton Hall 6-foot-6 guard Kadary Richmond was unstoppable, putting up 21 points, three rebounds and five assists.

“Richmond is a bear,” Smart said. “I don’t think I can name a player in college basketball that’s exactly like him with the combination of his size, the way he moves and slithers around out there.”

The bright spot

Ighodaro led Marquette with 22 points and eight rebounds. He also earned a season-high two blocks and three steals, and was the only Golden Eagle to not finish +/- in the negative.

“We don’t have everyone on our team on an equal level with Oso Ighodaro and his passion for winning,” Smart said.

Ighodaro finished with double-digit points in five of his last six games. He has scored less than 10 points in only four games this season.

This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.