Nothing has come easy lately for Marquette.
Riding the back of a three-game losing streak, the Golden Eagles (19-6, 10-4 Big East) overcame several obstacles Tuesday night to defeat DePaul (11-14, 2-12 Big East) 68-58 and sweep the season series at Fiserv Forum.
For a while, it looked like the two teams were going for a repeat of their overtime game in Chicago on Jan. 14. After trailing by just two at halftime, the Blue Demons evened up the game at 36 a piece with 18:32 to play.
Marquette went on an 18-3 run from there, while holding DePaul to just 1-of-11 shooting during that stretch. Jones scored eight of his game-high 19 points during the run, but the man who stole the show was Stevie Mitchell.
Mitchell went on a 4-0 run of his own in the second half, making a layup on one end, looking at Smart — who slapped the floor — before slapping the floor himself, grabbing a defensive rebound and then taking it coast-to-coast for another layup. Timeout DePaul.
Marquette had its biggest lead of the night (10 points) with 13:03 to play. Mitchell finished with 17 points on 5-of-8 shooting. The senior guard also had two steals.
With his 19-point performance, Jones moved up into third place on MU’s all-time scoring leaderboard. He now only trails Jerel McNeal’s 1,985 and Markus Howard’s 2,761.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been around a guy who loves his school, his fans, his program more than Kam Jones,” Marquette head coach Shaka Smart said. “It’s going to be really, really hard for him to leave here.
“And when he leaves here, he’s going to go to a pretty cool place. But it’s going to be hard for him to leave here because of the bond he has with everyone here. Not just the people inside our program, but the people who support our program, the support staff, the faculty, the other students at the university.”
The Golden Eagles started slowly in the first half and were never able to find their groove from the field. The Blue Demons kept themselves in the game thanks to a 12-4 run to end the first half. Buckets from senior guard Isaiah Rivera, sophomore guard David Thomas and sophomore guard Layden Blocker were a big reason why. A turnover by junior guard Chase Ross led to Blocker knocking down a shot as the buzzer sounded.
After going just 14-of-37 (35.1 percent) from the field, MU shot slightly better in the second half, going 11-for-30 (36.7 percent). The two teams couldn’t hit water if they fell out of a boat from beyond the arc on Tuesday, going a combined 8-for-49 from deep. Yikes.
The Golden Eagles shot under 20 percent from 3-point range for the first time this season. It was also the fifth game this season in which they’ve shot under 30 percent.
“The outcomes are, we shot 4-for-25, that’s pretty easy to diagnose,” Smart said. “A lot of those shots are good shots that we’d love to have back, maybe a couple that we had to force late.
“But for the most part, Kam Jones, 1-for-6, David Joplin, 1-for-6, Ben Gold 1-for-4, Royce Parham 1-for-4. Those are four really good shooters. Now why are they missing? There’s a lot to it; I’m not necessarily going to play sports psychologist on that one. I just know that we got an opportunity to bounce into our shot, shoot it the right way.
“Shoot it 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.”
After junior guard CJ Gunn hit a 3-pointer to cut Marquette’s lead to eight with just under two minutes to play, the Golden Eagles were able to get a much-needed stop on the opposite end to put the icing on the cake.
Despite several stretches of uninspired basketball, an ugly shooting night and turning the ball over 12 times, Marquette’s 15 second-chance points proved to be the difference as it stopped its losing streak at three.
The Golden Eagles now have a week to prepare for their next game against Seton Hall (6-18, 1-12 Big East) next Tuesday. At such a crucial time in the season where it feels like everyone is dealing with some types of bumps and bruises, Smart said he feels the time off will help his squad.
“Certainly physically, when you get to this late in the season, it’s always a good time to get guys some extra rest,” Smart said. “Chase Ross, for example, Stevie Mitchell, those guys play so incredibly hard.
“They’re not 100 percent, just like guys who log heavy minutes on other teams are not 100 percent.”
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at matthew.baltz@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.
