Thanks to a historic night from Kam Jones, Matt Painter’s winning streak has finally come to an end.
No. No. 15 Marquette breezed past No. 6 Purdue 76-58 Tuesday night at the Fiserv Forum in what was a very convincing performance early in the season for Shaka Smart’s group in Milwaukee. The win also ended Purdue’s 39-game non-conference regular-season win streak, which was the fourth-longest of all time going into Tuesday’s game.
Jones also made history for Marquette with the win. He led the Golden Eagles with a triple-double, just the third in program history. The last player to reach that milestone was former Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade in 2003. Jones finished Tuesday night with 17 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists while shooting 7-for-12 from the field.
“We came ready to play. We were prepared… We executed our game plan. My voice is gone, I talk too much there,” Jones said after the win over FS1. “I appreciate this team, I appreciate them letting me be their leader. Our team was huge tonight.”
Marquette led nearly the entire game Tuesday, taking a seven-point lead at halftime. The Golden Eagles also held Purdue without a field goal for more than eight minutes midway through the second half and went on a quick 8-0 run to reach a 14-point lead just before the under-four timeout. That was their largest lead of the evening and allowed them to ride the rest of the way to the 18-point victory.
Stevie Mitchell added 21 points for Marquette, matching Jones’ triple-double. Chase Ross finished with 12 points and Ben Gold added 11 points and five rebounds. As a team, they also only missed one free throw the entire game. Jones averaged 17.2 points and 2.4 assists per game last season, his third with the Golden Eagles. He scored 32 points in their season opener earlier this month, and he dropped 28 points in their win over Maryland on Friday.
Trey Kaufman-Renn led Purdue with 16 points and eight rebounds in the loss. Fletcher Loyer added 13 points and Braden Smith finished with 11 points. They were the only three Purdue players to reach double figures, and the Boilermakers went just 6 of 18 from behind the arc as a team.
Purdue entered Tuesday’s game fresh off a blowout 87-78 victory over then-No. 2 Alabama last week. The Boilermakers closed that game on a long 28-13 run, thanks in part to 26 points from Kaufman-Renn. Purdue committed just three total turnovers in that win, moving it up to No. 6 in this week’s poll.
Marquette is now 5-0 on the year and entered the game with an undefeated record after sneaking past the Terps last week. They take on Georgia next Saturday in the Bahamas and get both No. 5 Iowa State and No. 19 Wisconsin before Big East play begins.
While both UConn and Creighton get most of the attention in the conference, Marquette is the first of that group to pull off a major win outside of the conference this fall. With Jones leading the way, Marquette already appears more than capable of shaking off the reigning national champions and capturing a Big East title in a few months.
