There will be a new No. 1 team in college basketball when the next rankings come out.
Whether it might be Purdue or Marquette will be determined today at SimpliFi Arena at the Stan Sheriff Center. And while it won’t matter in March, there’s nothing wrong with some bragging rights in November.
The fourth-ranked Golden Eagles (5-0) looked golden at many points of their 73-59 victory over the No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks (4-1), setting up the high noon showdown with the No. 2 Boilermakers for the Maui Invitational championship.
Marquette — one day after overcoming a 12-point second-half deficit to edge UCLA in the first round — played with energy and togetherness on both sides of the court. A big part ot if was smothering the Jayhawks’ 7-foot-2 center Hunter Dickinson, who scored 31 points in Kansas’ romp over Chaminade on Monday but was held to 13 by Marquette and was charged with five of his team’s 18 turnovers.
Center Oso Ighodaro scored 21 points to lead the Golden Eagles.
“They played with connectivity,” Marquette coach Shaka Smart said of his team.”Oso’s been playing his butt off for a long time. … He’s changed a lot from the 190-pound kid who played 38 minutes all season. And he’s gonna have to eat his Wheaties again in the morning.”
A dozen of those Kansas miscues came in the first half, as the Golden Eagles played at a different speed in building a 38-28 lead at the break, from which the Jayhawks never quite recovered.
“I thought Marquette played great,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “They were so quick. guards that can drive. Their center had a fabulous game and we got behind and played catch-up the entire game. I thought we played better than the score. They were definitely the much better team tonight.”
Ighodaro also led Marquette with nine rebounds. And his back-to-back blocks of Kansas shots halted a mini-run by the Jayhawks that got them to within seven points late in the first half.
“They were getting downhill a little bit and I had to have my brothers’ backs,” Ighodaro said.
A couple of minutes later Kansas’ Kevin McCullar Jr., who was game-high with 24 points, hit a shot that closed the deficit to 33-28 with 3:19 left in the half.
Smart said McCullar said something to him, emotions flared, and coaches and players had to be kept apart.
“So, Kevin McCullar is one of the best competitors I’ve coached against in a long time. He played at Texas Tech,” said Smart, who previously coached at Texas. “He always just brought an edge that was different. And then he’s always kind of enjoyed having a dialogue with me. He probably does that with all coaches. But as you said, that kind of started the, you know, little dust-up, and then their bench got involved and our bench got involved, but at the end of the day, it really had very little to do with the game.”
Self was visibly upset during the confrontation. When asked after the game, he declined to comment, other than to question the veracity of anything Smart had to say about it (without having heard Smart’s version of events).
“I doubt it was accurate. I’m not going to talk about it,” the Kansas coach said. “I guarantee it wasn’t accurate.”
Marquette jumped to an 8-2 lead on the strength of two 3-pointers by Kam Jones, who finished with 10 points.
Dickinson tied it twice early, on a 3-pointer and a layup, but Marquette kept gradually adding to its lead.
Sean Jones — who hit the game-winner against UCLA — scored on a drive and made it a three-point play with a free throw. Then Chase Ross, who scored 12, hit to made it 21-16. Ighodaro and David Joplin scored in the paint to complete a 9-0 run, and it was 25-16.
McCullar cut to the hoop and scored on an assist from Dickinson and again off a steal, cutting the deficit to seven, before Ighodaro’s stellar rim-protection sparked the Golden Eagles again.
Marquette did not shoot particularly well percentage-wise as a team in the first half (41% from the floor), but its defense was relentless, causing turnovers by the Jayhawks.
The Golden Eagles scored seven unanswered points early in the second half; Ross’ 3-pointer made it 47-32 and prompted an early Jayhawks timeout.
Kansas missed its first six free throws until KJ Adams hit one with 12:45 left in the game. That started a 6-0 run that got the Jayhawks to a single-digit deficit.
Ben Gold then came off the bench to hit back-to-back 3-pointers for Marquette. The second making it 59-44 with 9:52 left, and Kansas never made another serious run.
“He played great tonight,” Ighodaro said of Gold. “A spark off the bench.”