No. 10 Marquette stays unbeaten by thumping Western Carolina

Kam Jones scored 20 points and dished 10 assists to lead the No. 10 Marquette Golden Eagles to a 94-62 victory over the visiting Western Carolina Catamounts on Saturday afternoon in Milwaukee.

Jones added six rebounds for Marquette (8-0), which is off to its best start since winning 10 straight to begin the 2011-12 campaign, which ended with a Sweet 16 appearance. Ben Gold added 12 points, while Stevie Mitchell scored 10 and had three steals. David Joplin, Caedin Hamilton and Royce Parham each netted nine points for the Golden Eagles.

The Catamounts (2-4) were led by Bernard Pelote's 13 points and eight boards. Jamar Livingston chipped in 10 points and CJ Hyland bundled five points with five rebounds and six assists.

Marquette controlled most of the game, thanks largely to 51.4 percent shooting and 21 takeaways.

The Golden Eagles built a 16-point lead in the first half before Western Carolina clawed within 37-28 with 3:55 left. Marquette responded with a 12-2 run to take a 49-30 advantage into the break, its largest lead of the game to that point.

The game quickly got out of hand from there, with the Golden Eagles eventually scoring 11 straight points to push its lead to 81-45 with 7:15 remaining.

Marquette finished with 26 points off of Catamount turnovers and hit 14 of 40 shots (35.0 percent) from 3-point range.

The win wasn't all smooth sailing for the Golden Eagles, who lost backup guard Zaide Lowery to an apparent left knee injury. Lowery was helped off the court and into the locker room by his teammates with 1:36 left in the game.

Saturday's game was a final tune-up for Marquette, which has three challenging games coming up against No. 5 Iowa State, No. 15 Wisconsin and Dayton before Big East Conference play begins Dec. 18.

--Field Level Media