Kam Jones poured in 32 points to lead No. 18 Marquette to an easy 102-62 victory over Stony Brook in Milwaukee on Monday night in the season opener for both teams.
Jones stepped up for a Marquette team that lost Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro to the NBA this past offseason, knocking down 14 of 16 shots from the field to come up two points shy of matching his career high.
What was originally a close game quickly turned into a rout, with the Golden Eagles putting together a 30-11 run over the final 10:35 of the first half to take a commanding 48-30 advantage into the break. Jones punctuated the game-changing rally with one of his four triples on the night.
Marquette never looked back, going on to lead by as many as 42.
Chase Ross backed up Jones with a career-high 23 points on 9-of-11 shooting. He also had a team-high eight rebounds to go along with four assists.
David Joplin supplied 13 points and seven boards for the Golden Eagles, who connected on 40 of their 68 attempts from the floor (58.8 percent). However, they sank just 9 of 31 3-pointers (29 percent).
The Seawolves were up 19-18 following a jumper by CJ Luster with 10:53 left in the first half before the floodgates opened for Marquette. That was the last time that Stony Brook held a lead.
Joe Octave paced the visitors with 12 points, while Ben Wight (10 points, eight rebounds) flirted with a double-double. The Seawolves committed twice as many turnovers as the Golden Eagles (14-7), shot 36.7 percent overall (22 of 60) and went 7-for-25 (28 percent) from beyond the arc.
Marquette finished with a 43-30 advantage on the glass and dominated down low, racking up 60 points in the paint to Stony Brook’s 28.