No. 10 Marquette men’s basketball (17-3, 8-1 Big East) capitalized off turnovers, Stevie Mitchell tying a career-high in scoring and complementary shooting en route to an 87-74 victory over Villanova (12-9, 5-5 Big East) at Fiserv Forum Friday night.
In the Golden Eagles’ first home game since their 59-57 loss to Xavier, Marquette continued its momentum stemming from Tuesday’s win over Seton Hall, winning the turnover battle by seven and being able to turn that into a 14-point advantage in points off turnovers.
Head coach Shaka Smart said that setting the tone at home was at the top of the list for today’s matchup and keeping leading scorer Eric Dixon at bay.
“Even though we won at Seton Hall, we had a little bit of a bad taste in our mouth just from the last time we played here at Fiserv; we wanted to be better, and I thought we got really good contributions from everybody that went in the game,” Smart said.
“Royce Parham was phenomenal on the offensive end in his minutes, Zaide Lowery making two threes is as big, but David Joplin is up there even though he didn’t make shots from the outside.”
With Marquette keeping a two-to-three-possession lead for much of the contest, prompt shooting was critical to ensure the Golden Eagles remained in front. As the clock ticked down at the end of the opening period, Parham drained a corner 3-point shot to put Marquette ahead by 10 points at the halftime buzzer.
“Kam (Jones) made a great pass to me, I was open, and I was like ‘why not?’, I shot it, felt great, then the crowd went crazy, it really boosted our team after that,” Parham said.
Senior guard Stevie Mitchell led Marquette with 21 points, tying a career-high set on Nov. 19 against Purdue. He also amassed three steals, including ripping the ball away from Dixon and turning the opportunity into a layup on the other end, with 13:35 left in the second half.
Chase Ross, Kam Jones, and Parham also finished in double figures for Marquette, while Dixon finished with 18 points, but Villanova senior Jordan Longino led all scorers with 27 points, a career-high, and seven assists.
Smart said that Mitchell’s energy is a building block of which the rest of the team feeds off.
“Stevie’s always highly motivated, I think that he just had such a level of pride, it’s special, his pride in Marquette and his teammates,” Smart said.
Up Next
Marquette is back on the road to face Butler (8-11, 1-7 Big East) at Hinkle Fieldhouse on Jan. 28. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. CST.
This story was written by Mikey Severson. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @MikeySeversonMU
