Some would thought that Marquette Golden Eagles’ win over Villanova Wildcats is just another day at the office for them as the higher ranked team and the game was played at home. Coach Shaka Smart said they looked at the match differently.
Stevie Mitchell tied his career high of 21 points in the win while Kam Jones had 16. Chase Ross was also sensational with his 18 points on an efficient 5 out of 8 shooting.
Royce Parham fulfilled his role from the bench with his 10 points.
Jordan Longino had a great game himself for the Wildcats with his 27 points and seven assists but they were still not enough for the visitors.
Marquette remains at no. 1 in the Big East standing with a 17-3 record, 8-1 in the conference.
Shaka Smart is concerned with lone home loss
The Golden Eagles are currently 11-1 at home this season. It is just defeat but Smart said it gave them enough motivation to do better in front of home fans.
They suffered the loss against Xavier University Musketeers whom they defeated in December 22.
Smart said the defeat left a bad taste in their mouth. Against Villanova, he praised his team for working together to get the victory.
“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 told reporters.
“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.”
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