The AP Top 10 battle between Marquette Golden Eagle and Iowa State Cyclones ended up with the latter winning 81-70. Shaka Smart praised the winning team but he thinks the victory could have gone to their side if only they were more aggressive.
The two teams came to the match a day after the Associated Press revealed its Coaches Poll results wherein Marquette received a higher ranking at 5th spot against Iowa State’s no. 6. The latter proved that it does not mean anything as they took care of business at home to hand Golden Eagles their first loss of the season.
It was total team effort for the hosts.
Joshua Jefferson recorded his second double double of the season with 15 points and 12 rebounds. Keshon Gilbert caused the most havoc for the Cyclones as he matched this season high of 24 points. He did this despite getting his nose broken and even had to go to the locker room.
Starting center Dishon Jackson poured 11 points, grabbed seven rebounds and blocked 2 shots. Curtis Jones came off the bench and scored 14 points, his sixth straight game with double-digit points.
As for Marquette, they had a hard to time to get things going.
David Joplin, who received praises for his maturity in their huge wins in the last two games, only had 8 points on 3 out of 13 shooting.
Stevie Mitchell had 13 points but was in foul trouble. Kai Jones had an almost triple double with 14, 8, and 9 but they were not enough.
Marquette’s bench was reliable just like in their past games, specifically Royce Parham who topscored for them with 17.
Golden Eagles coach Shaka Smart attributes loss to passiveness
Marquette went down by double digits early in the first half but they were able to make a comeback.
Smart said they lacked the aggressiveness and were not able to stick to the game plan.
He said via Marquette Hoops’ John Dodds:
I thought our guys showed a really good response to being down…coming back from double figures deficit…tying the game…I thought we asserted our aggressiveness for about a 5-6 min stretch there…that was the game plan coming in…but Iowa State deserves a lot of credit…I thought they were the aggressors in the 1H…there was one point when the officials called 8 consecutive fouls on us…and sometimes that happens to the team that does not have the aggressiveness approach…that seems counterintuitive…but we were a little reactionary and you cannot be like that in these type of games.
Next up for Marquette Golden Eagles are their state rivals Wisconsin Badgers who lost their game against Michigan Wolverines yesterday.
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