The No. 19/21 Marquette Golden Eagles (2-0) forced at least 25 turnovers for the second straight game en route to a 99-68 victory over Norfolk State (0-1).
“We’re guarding the ball first, and then being in the right position if one of our men gets beat to the channel,” senior forward Jae Crowder said. “Just being in the right position and playing great team defense is helping us create a lot of turnovers.”
The Golden Eagles were led by Crowder’s game-high 25 points and 10 rebounds – Marquette’s second game featuring a player with a double-double (junior guard Junior Cadougan had 10 points and 10 assists in the opener).
Marquette had 46 points in the paint for the game and Crowder was the producer of many of them.
“As the game went on we knew that the middle and the paint would be open for our big guys and for us create some driving lanes and finish at the basket,” Crowder said. “We knew it was eventually it was going to happen so we wanted to execute it.”
Not to be left out of the 20 point bracket, senior guard Darius Johnson-Odom added 24 of his own and was three rebounds shy of his preseason goal of five rebounds and assists per game.
“He can score in a lot of different ways for us. A lot of things he does helps open up other things for us,” Crowder said. “It’s just Darius (Johnson-Odom) setting a good tone for us on the offensive end. It helps us out as a team.”
It took Marquette 8:49 to build its first double-digit lead in its 91-37 victory over Mount St. Mary’s.
But Monday, Norfolk State kept the lead in single-digits until the 4:21 mark of the first half through 3-pointers, making 5-of-11 (45.4 percent) in the first 14:51 of play. Norfolk State finished the game shooting 45.8 percent from three (11-of-24) and 6-of-10 (60 percent) in the second half.
In the second half Marquette built as large as a 25-point lead with 12:20 left in regulation, but allowed Norfolk State to break that into a 12 point lead with 7:06 left in regulation.
“I thought it got ragid. We made a run, and I probably should have subbed some guys out,” coach Buzz Williams said. “As hard as we play it’s hard to play a long period of time on both ends of the floor and be able to execute. I should have called a timeout when I sensed it was ragid.
“When we’re out of sync on either end of the floor it typically leads to whatever end we’re on, the other end is about to get out of sync too. I know that. That’s how we play. And that’s how we work.”
The strong shooting from three prompted Norfolk State players to periodically sport the “three goggles” Marquette made famous last season.
“I think they were mocking us. They usually don’t do that,” Crowder said. “I joked around with the couple of the guys and was saying, ‘you got to hit enough threes to do that. So you shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t disrespect us like that.’ Just jokingly.”
It was the second straight game where a Marquette opponent reached double-digit offensive rebounds. Mount St. Mary’s had 16 while Norfolk State had 10. Crowder acknowledged it’s a glaring problem.
“We do a lot of things in practice to try to stop that in a lot of different ways. It comes down to just you not letting your man get that rebound,” Crowder said. “(If) all five guys on the floor get that mentality of just their man’s not going to get this rebound (then) that number will go down tremendously.”
Paint Touches 
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