It was an all too familiar feeling for Marquette men’s basketball.
In fact, if you were to show a random person film of the first half of Wednesday night’s game and the last time these two teams met up inside Fiserv Forum a year ago — when MU lost 69-62 and shot 5-of-31 from three— they might not have been able to tell that they were two separate games.
The Golden Eagles had just shot 2-for-15 from 3-point land and overall shot 12-of-36 from the field in the first 20 minutes. They walked into the locker room down 35-32, and with the way things were seemingly going at the time, 20 minutes away from yet another upset at the hands of Butler on their own floor.
“Offensive rebounds, that’s just an effort thing,” Stevie Mitchell said. “So, it’s nice that the number reflects the effort we wanted to bring into tonight’s game, and just the spirit we wanted to have and just the ability to win ugly.”
Despite shooting just 6-of-30 from 3-point range Wednesday night at Fiserv Forum, Marquette men’s basketball (10-2, 1-0 Big East) was able to grab 20 offensive rebounds — 38 total — to down the Bulldogs (7-5, 0-1 Big East) 80-70.
“We needed more shots than they got because we didn’t make many of ’em,” head coach Shaka Smart said. “…To get 47 percent of our misses back is a huge deal, that’s why we got so many more shots than them.”
The Golden Eagles came out of the locker room buzzing at half, scoring on four of their first five possessions, and forcing the Bulldogs into three turnovers of their own.
Speaking of turnovers, Marquette only turned the ball over twice on Wednesday — marking the fewest turnovers the team had committed in a game since 2011.
“It’s amazing the connection between spirit and focus,” Smart said. “When you’re in the right place, in terms of the spirit that you’re bringing to the court, bringing to your teammates, the focus you bring to things like taking care of the ball, making free throws, communication is typically at a high level as well.”
Despite not being able to hit water if it fell out of a boat from distance in the first 24 minutes of the game, Marquette’s confidence was not deterred one bit from beyond the arc.
Royce Parham and his ever-confident-self spotted up from distance to give the Golden Eagles a 47-42 lead. Then, a couple possessions later Ross pulled up on a fast break and canned a trey to give Marquette’s its then-largest lead of the night at 52-42.
Kam Jones — who came into Wednesday averaging north of 40 percent shooting from deep — was 0-for-6 from beyond the arc at one point in the game. That was until Andre Screen decided to let one of the nation’s top scorers have a wide-open look for three.
As you might’ve guessed, Jones nailed it as Marquette stretched its lead to 66-54.
“We always want to take open threes,” Smart said when asked about the offensive game plan even when shots aren’t falling. “These guys are good shooters. Ben Gold, David Joplin, Kam Jones, Chase Ross, Stevie Mitchell, we’re taking open threes from those guys all day long.”
Marquette outscored Butler 48-35 in the second-half while forcing them into eight turnovers — not committing any itself.
The Bulldogs got the score down to as close as six down the stretch, but a late and-one basket by Stevie Mitchell and an emphatic dunk from Chase Ross helped the Golden Eagles put the exclamation point on the win.
A familiar feeling, with a not so familiar result, much to the pleasure of Marquette.
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.
