The game was tied at six after the first five minutes of play.
Eight minutes later, No. 21 Marquette men’s basketball was ahead 27-13, and that was pretty much the game.
Although the Hoyas (16-13, 7-11 Big East) attempted a comeback in the final half, it was no use as the Golden Eagles (22-7, 13-5 Big East) defeated them 76-61 Saturday night at Capital One Arena, marking their first road win since Jan. 28 at Butler.
“I thought our guys were ready from the standpoint of our defensive approach and our offensive approach,” Marquette head coach Shaka Smart told ESPN Milwaukee broadcasters Steve “The Homer” True and Tony Smith in a post-game radio interview. “The first thing about consistency is a readiness at the beginning of the game and the beginning of the half. They did a terrific job with that.”
In the 21-7 run that gave MU a 14-point lead, all five starters contributed at least a basket with junior forward Ben Gold — who finished with 15 points on 6-for-11 shooting — leading the way with eight points.
“Ben Gold two games in a row has been a heck of a weapon for us on the offensive end, both in the paint and also making threes,” Smart said. “I’m just really happy for him because a lot of people had different things to say about him when he went through that tough stretch.
“He knows we believe in him. The last two games, he’s been an upper-tier guy for us. Not every game is he going to score 15, 17 points, but if he can play with that type of energy, it’s huge for us.”
While Marquette’s offense was rolling, its defense was also clamping down on Georgetown with an equal amount of force. At one point, GU did not net a field goal for over seven minutes. The Golden Eagles held the Hoyas to just 22 points in the first frame, allowing them to shoot only 19.2 percent (5-for-26) from the field.
“We had some really good possessions of one-on-one defense, helping each other,” Smart said. “There’s a lot of good things we did. I thought in the first half to take them out of what they were doing and make them play one-on-one and make them miss. That was a big key to our defense.”
MU also held senior guard Micah Peavy — who averaged 24.2 points per game in February — to just one point in the first 20 minutes.
“We want to do that as a team,” Smart said about his team’s approach to defending Peavy. “Chase Ross started on him. He’s our best defender for someone like that, someone who has size. A lot of guys guarded him over the course of the game. I thought the first half, we just did a terrific job making those three guards — (Malik) Mack, Peavy and (Jayden) Epps — inefficient.”
On the other hand, MU shot 55.2 percent from the floor in the first half, earning 13 points off nine GU turnovers and winning the paint battle 20-4.
And the Golden Eagles carried that first-half energy over to the second half, going on a 14-5 run over four minutes to get out to their largest lead of the night at 28 points.
But then the Hoyas woke up halfway through the second frame, going on an 11-1 run to cut their deficit to 12 points with 5:48 to play. Marquette responded after that though, going on a 6-0 run to effectively shut the door on Georgetown and sweep the season series.
“Just trying to reset the guys and help them understand what we needed to be for the next round,” Smart said about how he felt during the GU surge. “I thought Georgetown did a great job taking the aggressiveness advantage back from us, and we’d had it for most of the game… We got some crucial stops there after the under-eight media timeout, and we were able to extend the lead back.”
Senior guard Kam Jones earned his fifth career double-double in the win, scoring 13 points and dishing out a career-high 13 assists in his 45th consecutive game in double figures.
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“He passed the ball really well, and he didn’t shoot, didn’t make threes,” Smart said. “In a game where he doesn’t make threes, his floor game is even that much more important, and I thought he did a great job of that today.”
The starting group all finished in double figures in scoring in the victory. The Golden Eagles are now tied with the Creighton Bluejays for second place in the Big East, securing themselves a top five finish in the conference and an opening-round bye in the league tournament.
But the regular season is not done yet — MU faces a big test at UConn (20-9, 12-6 Big East) Wednesday night.
This article was written by Kaylynn Wright. She can be reached at kaylynn.wright@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @KaylynnWrightMU.
