After a brief holiday break, No. 10 Marquette looks to continue its sizzling start Saturday against Western Carolina in Milwaukee.
The Golden Eagles (7-0) are off to their best start since opening 10-0 in 2011-12. They handled Stonehill 94-59 on Wednesday night.
David Joplin led the way with 27 points on 10-of-12 shooting from the floor. Kam Jones added 14 and highly-touted freshman Damarius Owens added 14 off the bench.
“I was really excited to see our young guys get in the game and play extended minutes, help us extend the lead,” Marquette coach Shaka Smart said. “Obviously, Damarius had a big offensive game, but I thought all those guys came off the bench and gave us a lift.”
Owens missed Marquette’s first handful of games this season due to injury. Now, he’s earning more minutes.
“It’s so good to have him out there. He does a lot of things really well,” Smart said. “His future is incredibly bright, hopefully, he can continue gaining good experience.”
The visiting Catamounts (2-3) are coming off back-to-back losses to Atlantic Coast Conference opponents: 82-69 at Wake Forest on Nov. 19 and 91-57 at Florida State on Tuesday night.
Brandon Morgan led Western Carolina with 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting against the Seminoles. Cord Stansberry and Ice Emery each added 10. Florida State shot 57.4 percent (31 of 54) from the field and took advantage of 19 turnovers and 28 missed 3-pointers by the Catamounts.
“They always have a long and athletic, defense-oriented team,” Catamounts coach Tim Craft said of the challenge of playing Florida State. “I think these guys play their defense as good as any team prior to what they had in the last four to five years.”
Emery leads the Catamounts with 14.2 points per game along with his averages of 2.2 assists and 1.4 steals. Bernard Pelote averages 8.0 boards a game and Vernon Collins is swatting away 1.6 shots per night.
Jones leads Marquette with 19.6 points and 5.7 assists per game. Joplin leads with 6.4 rebounds and Chase Ross is stealing the ball 3.1 times a game.
This will be a final tune-up for Marquette, which wraps up its non-conference schedule with tough matchups at No. 5 Iowa State, at home against No. 15 Wisconsin and at Dayton. Big East Conference play begins on Dec. 18 at home against Butler.
Western Carolina, which competes in the Southern Conference, is in its first season under Craft and hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since the 1995-96 season.
These programs have faced off five times in their history and Marquette is a perfect 5-0, with all five matchups being played in Milwaukee. This will be the Catamounts’ first visit to Fiserv Forum as the last matchup was in 2016, a 90-44 win for Marquette at the Bradley Center.
