Thanks to a historic night from Kam Jones, Matt Painter’s winning streak has finally come to an end.
No. 15 Marquette fended off No. 6 Purdue Tuesday night 76-58 at Fiserv Forum in a very convincing outing to start the year. That snapped the Boilermakers’ long non-conference regular-season winning streak of 39 consecutive games, which was the fourth-longest all-time entering Tuesday’s game.
Jones led the Golden Eagles with a triple-double in the victory, which was by far his best of the season. It was just the third triple-double in Marquette history, and the first since Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade did it in 2003. Jones finished with 17 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists while making 7 of 12 shots. field.
Marquette led nearly the entire game Tuesday and took a seven-point lead into the halftime break. The Golden Eagles also held Purdue without a field goal for more than eight minutes midway through the second half, going on a quick 8-0 run to take a 14-point lead just before the under-four timeout. That was their biggest lead of the night and allowed them to go the rest of the way to the surprise 18-point victory.
Stevie Mitchell added 21 points for Marquette, in addition to Jones’ triple-double. Chase Ross finished with 12 points and Ben Gold added 11 points and five rebounds. They also missed only one free throw as a team during the entire game.
Jones averaged 17.2 points and 2.4 assists per game last season, his third with the Golden Eagles. He scored 32 points in the season opener earlier this month and dropped 28 points in the 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 reach double figures, and the Boilermakers were just 6 of 18 from behind the arc as a team.
Purdue entered Tuesday’s game fresh off a big 87-78 win over then-No. 2 Alabama last week. The Boilermakers finished that game on a long 28-13 run, thanks in part to Kaufman-Renn’s 26 points. Purdue committed just three total turnovers in that win, dropping it to No. 6 in this week’s poll.
Marquette is now 5-0 so far this year and entered the game with an undefeated record after topping the Terps last week. They will face Georgia next Saturday in the Bahamas, and will face No. 5 Iowa State and No. 19 Wisconsin before Big East play begins.
While both UConn and Creighton get most of the attention in the conference, Marquette is the first of that group to notch a big non-conference win this fall.
This post will be updated with more information soon.