No. 18 Marquette men’s basketball came into its matchup against DePaul in a three-consecutive-loss hole. Its 68-58 win over the Blue Demons was the rope they needed to start climbing towards daylight.
With the help of a 12-0 scoring run in the second half, a combined 36 points from senior guards Kam Jones and Stevie Mitchell and efficient early scoring from senior forward David Joplin and first-year forward Royce Parham, the Golden Eagles grabbed their first win since Jan. 28.
It wasn’t easy for the Golden Eagles—nothing has been in the past two weeks.
“We’ve been through a tough stretch the last few games,” head coach Shaka Smart said. “We have a lot of pride in this program, so we don’t take kindly to losing. It doesn’t sit well with us, and we have a sense of urgency to grow and improve.
“The biggest thing that our guys demonstrated tonight was a level of character to win beyond whether the ball was going in or not. We missed 21 out of our 25 three-point attempts and then we missed probably 10 to 12 shots around the basket. It’s easy for that type of thing to demoralize you, but I thought, for the most part, our guys’ spirit and energy was really good.”
Marquette’s early hot hands try to help
Only nine minutes into the first half, Joplin notched his seventh point and fifth rebound. Joplin’s 3-for-5 shooting from the floor and 1-for-2 from deep in the first 10 minutes helped give Marquette an early lead over the Blue Demons while it was struggling to find a bucket.
“I think it does a lot [to have impact players],” Mitchell said. “One of the strengths of our team is having a lot of guys who can make plays whether or not everybody else is making plays. What we pride ourselves on when we’re at our best is having a bunch of dudes that can go out there and impact the game in so many ways.”
After scoring two points early, Royce Parham came off the bench a second time and gave Marquette energy to close out the half. With 2:13 left in the first, he hit a 3-pointer and on the next possession, a layup. This gave the Golden Eagles their largest lead of the first half (8).
Kam Jones to Royce Parham for three #MUBB | #WeAreMarquette pic.twitter.com/UQcUqct8rw
— Marquette Basketball (@MarquetteMBB) February 12, 2025
But Marquette couldn’t hold on to this advantage for long. DePaul hit two 3-pointers within the last 90 seconds of the half and eventually brought it within two before the buzzer.
On top of that, Joplin and Parham wouldn’t put up another point for the rest of the night after their contributions in the first half.
Deep shot proves to be a struggle for both teams
When the night was over, DePaul and Marquette shot 16.7 percent and 16 percent from beyond the arc, respectively. It was the worst deep ball performance for the Golden Eagles this season.
In the second half, the first made 3-pointer between the two teams came at 10:27 from junior guard CJ Gunn. Marquette’s first wouldn’t come until two and a half minutes later when Kam Jones knocked down his first triple of the night—after missing his first five.
In total, Marquette would shoot 4-for-25 from deep.
“A lot of those shots are good shots that we’d love to have back,” Smart said. “Now, why are they missing? Man, there’s a lot to it. I know that we got an opportunity to bounce into our shot, shoot it the right way and shoot with discipline. We all believe in the guy rising up to shoot it and I think that over time those guys are going to make shots, and we have to believe that.”
With rampant poor shooting, the only reason the duel wasn’t close towards the end was because of a five and a half minute, 12-0 scoring run the Golden Eagles went on four minutes into the second half.
This article was written by Benjamin Hanson. He can be reached at benjamin.hanson@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @benhansonMU.
