Thanks to a historic night from Kam Jones, Matt Painter’s win streak has finally come to an end.
No. 15 Marquette flew past No. 6 Purdue 76-58 on Tuesday night at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee in what was a very convincing outing early in the season for Shaka Smart’s group in Milwaukee. The win snapped Purdue’s 39-game regular-season non-conference win streak, too, which was the fourth-longest of all time entering Tuesdays’ game.
Jones made Marquette history in the win, too. He led the Golden Eagles with a triple-double, which was just the third in program history. The last player to hit that milestone was former Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade in 2003. Jones finished with 17 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists while shooting 7-of-12 from the field on Tuesday night.
“We came out ready to play. We was prepared … We executed our game plan. My voice is gone, out there talking too much,” Jones said on FS1 after the win. “I appreciate this team, I appreciate them letting me be their leader. Our team was huge tonight.”
Marquette led nearly the entire way on Tuesday, and it took a seven-point lead into the break at halftime. The Golden Eagles held Purdue without a field goal for more than eight minutes midway through the second half, and ripped off a quick 8-0 run to push to a 14-point lead just ahead of the under-four timeout. That was their largest lead of the night, and allowed them to cruise the rest of the way to the 18-point victory.
Stevie Mitchell added 21 points for Marquette to go with Jones’ triple-double. Chase Ross finished with 12 points, and Ben Gold added 11 points and five rebounds. They missed just one free throw as a team the entire way. Jones averaged 17.2 points and 2.4 assists per game last season, his third with the Golden Eagles. He put up 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 hit 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 big 87-78 upset win over then-No. 2 Alabama last week. The Boilermakers ended 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, which moved 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’ll take on Georgia on Saturday in the Bahamas, and will get both No. 5 Iowa State and No. 19 Wisconsin before Big East play kicks off.
While both UConn and Creighton get the bulk of the attention in the conference, Marquette is the first of that group to secure a big non-conference win this fall. With Jones leading the way, Marquette already looks more than capable of knocking off the reigning national champions and picking up a Big East title in a few months.
