MENS BASKETBALL

Marquette 72, Creighton 67

BY STEVE MEGARGEE
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MILWAUKEE - Sean Jones scored a career-high 15 points, Tyler Kolek also had 15 and No. 10 Marquette rallied to beat No. 22 Creighton 72-67 and tie a Big East record with its 20th straight home victory.

The only other Big East teams to win 20 straight home games were Pittsburgh from 2002-04, Notre Dame from 2006-09 and Marquette from 2012-14. Marquette hasn’t lost a Big East home game since falling 75-69 to Creighton in double overtime on Jan. 1, 2022.

Marquette (11-3, 2-1) has won 19 straight home games overall. Its last loss at Fiserv Forum was an 80-77 overtime setback against Wisconsin on Dec. 3, 2022.

Jones, a reserve who had been 4 of 28 from 3-point range, went 3 of 5 from beyond the arc. Kolek had eight assists. Kam Jones added 12 points and David Joplin scored 10, while Oso Ighodaro had seven points and 16 rebounds.

Creighton (9-4, 0-2) lost for the third time in four games despite getting 23 points from Baylor Scheierman and 18 from Trey Alexander. Scheierman went 7 of 13 on 3-point attempts and set a career high for 3-point baskets.

The Bluejays are 0-2 in conference play for the first time since 2014-15.

Creighton hadn’t played since Dec. 20, when it opened its Big East schedule by losing 68-66 in overtime at home to Villanova. Marquette’s last game was an 81-51 blowout of Georgetown on Dec. 22.

Marquette looked rustier in the early going, even though Stevie Mitchell was back in the starting lineup after missing four games with a hamstring injury.

The Golden Eagles fell behind 14-3 just over five minutes into the game. They missed 18 of their first 22 shots overall and 11 of their first 12 attempts from 3-point range.

Marquette took its first lead on Kolek’s driving layup with 12:46 remaining. The lead changed hands six more times over the next three minutes, with neither team pulling ahead by more than two.

The Golden Eagles opened up some breathing room when Sean Jones hit back-to-back 3-pointers to give Marquette a 52-48 edge with 8:40 left. Marquette extended the lead to 61-54 on a Joplin 3-pointer with 3:51 remaining.

After Creighton scored five straight points to reduce the margin to two, Joplin hit another 3-pointer with 2:24 left. Joplin punctuated the victory by dunking to make it 66-59 with 38.3 seconds left.

BIG PICTURE

Creighton: The Bluejays’ inability to protect the ball — 12 of their 18 turnovers came in the first half — prevented them from fully capitalizing on Marquette’s cold start. That proved critical once Marquette heated up in the second half.

Marquette: Rebounding has been Marquette’s one major weakness in Shaka Smart’s three seasons as coach. Not Saturday. Marquette outrebounded Creighton 42-32 and had an 18-2 advantage in second-chance points. Oso Ighodaro had nine of Marquette’s 18 offensive rebounds.

Marquette athletics press release

December 30, 2023