No. 14 Marquette surges in second half to beat Seton Hall, 75-57
Oso Ighodaro scored 21 points, David Joplin added 20 and No. 14 Marquette beat Seton Hall, 75-57, on Saturday for its fourth consecutive win.
Marquette (15-5, 6-3 Big East) got just seven combined points from leading scorers Tyler Kolek and Kam Jones, but the Golden Eagles broke open a close game by outscoring Seton Hall 45-28 in the second half.
Both teams were dealing with injuries to key players.
An unspecified injury caused Seton Hall (13-8, 6-4), which lost its third in a row, to play a second straight game without top scorer Kadary Richmond. Jones, Marquette’s second-leading scorer, played just five minutes due to an ankle issue and scored three points.
Kolek, the reigning Big East player of the year, had just four points and was held scoreless until 1:12 was left in the game. Kolek made up for it by collecting 11 assists.
Jaden Bediako led Seton Hall with 18 points, one off his career high. Dre Davis added 13 points.
Stevie Mitchell had 13 points, six assists and five steals for Marquette. Ben Gold added nine points and six rebounds to help Marquette outscore Seton Hall 14-2 in bench production.
Marquette trailed by as many as seven in the first half and didn’t take its first lead until Gold’s 3-pointer gave the Golden Eagles a 28-27 advantage with 1:12 remaining until halftime. The lead changed hands a couple of more times before Marquette took a 30-29 edge into the locker room.
Joplin sank a 3-pointer to cap a 12-2 surge that extended Marquette’s lead to 45-33 with 16:14 left. Seton Hall answered with an 8-1 run to get the margin down to five with 13:18 remaining, but Marquette soon regained its double-digit margin and stayed in control the rest of the way.
Marquette's Oso Ighodaro makes one-handed dunk to increase lead
The Pirates beat then-No. 7 Marquette, 78-75, on Jan. 6 as part of a five-game winning streak that put them atop the Big East standings. Seton Hall followed up that winning streak with a three-game skid that included home losses to Creighton and Providence. Richmond has missed two of those games, and Seton Hall hasn’t been the same without him.
Earlier this season, it seemed the Golden Eagles were relying too heavily on the trio of Kolek, Jones and Ighodaro. That they won easily Saturday without getting much scoring from Kolek or Jones shows how far they've come in the last couple of weeks.
Marquette was ranked as high as No. 3 earlier this season but fell all the way to 17th after a sluggish start to Big East play. This winning streak could get the Golden Eagles closer to the top 10.
Up next, Seton Hall is at DePaul and Marquette visits Villanova on Tuesday.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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