First, the basics: Marquette men’s basketball hosted #6 Michigan State on Sunday afternoon at Fiserv Forum for their final tuneup for the 2026-27 regular season. In somewhat of a shocker, the Golden Eagles moved out into a lead in the first half, pushed it to 12 at intermission, weathered a Spartan rally, shoved the lead back out to as many as 17 points, then wrapped up a victory at 86-79. The listed attendance for the game is 13,020, but seeing as there were effectively no students in the building because Sunday was the final day of fall break, I extremely doubt the fact that we got over 13K as far as actually through the turnstiles.
Stat Leaders!
Marquette
Points: Alex Egbuonu, 14
Rebounds: Royce Parham, 8
Assists: Nigel James, 7
Blocks: Sananda Fru & Alex Egbuonu, 1
Steals: Adrien Stevens, 2
Minutes: Royce Parham, 29
Michigan State
Points: Jasiah Jervis, 19
Rebounds: Cameron Ward, 4
Assists: Jeremy Fears, 7
Blocks: Jordan Scott, 4
Steals: Jordan Scott, 3
Four Factors
Marquette
Effective Field Goal Percentage: 67.0%
Turnover Rate: 31.6%
Offensive Rebounding Rate: 40.9%
Free Throw Rate: 70.2%
Points Per Possession: 1.13
Michigan State
Effective Field Goal Percentage: 48.1%
Turnover Rate: 17.1%
Offensive Rebounding Rate: 29.4%
Free Throw Rate: 69.8%
Points Per Possession: 1.04
Highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and absolutely no one else:
And 8 minutes of media availability from head coach Shaka Smart:
Big Picture Stuff: Michigan State couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn in the first half, shooting just 7-for-27 from the field and that includes a really bad 3-for-12 inside the arc. Even though Marquette coughed it up 13 times before intermission — five alone from Nigel James — the Spartans couldn’t do squat with all of that advantage and so Marquette’s 15-for-23 shooting — 10-for-13 inside the arc! — buried Michigan State by 12, 43-31, at halftime.
The Spartans fixed their shooting in the second half, connecting on nearly 54% of their shots, and they went 5-for-10 from long range to help their case out. But they were already in a hole, and MU nudged that margin to 16 early on in the second half, and MU just calmly shooting 50% in the second half was enough to hold Michigan State off.
The big test for the day came when Michigan State reeled off 11 straight unanswered points, their longest run of the day, to cut the margin all the way down to just five points, 52-47. How would the Golden Eagles respond to the preseason #6 team in the country looking like the #6 team in the country for about four minutes of game time? It wasn’t just that Michigan State was seizing control of the game, it’s that Marquette was looking awful, sloppy, and quite honestly slightly brain dead to help the Spartans on their way.
Your answer? Eight straight points by the Golden Eagles, including a pair of three-pointers from Adrien Stevens. Lead’s back up to 13. Back-to-back buckets from Nigel James and Alex Egbuonu, including an and-1 freebie for James, lead’s up to 16 gain. Two free throws by James, 72-55, Marquette by 17. 20-8 run overall by the Golden Eagles across about six minutes of game time.
The lead didn’t touch single digits again until there was less than 90 seconds left, and if this were February, I would be supremely annoyed about Michigan State fouling down seven with 33 seconds left. I can see a world where both Tom Izzo and Shaka Smart agreed to do that just to give the players an opportunity to experience it if the game was close-ish late since this was an exhibition, so I’m going to let it slide here.
Thoughts and observations:
- Nigel James can’t have eight turnovers in 28 minutes and be a -5 in a game where Marquette wins by 10 (I’m ignoring the three at the buzzer for the actual final margin here). Or, rather, he can’t do that again, because that’s what he did here.
- As a team, Marquette finished with 24 turnovers, which should normally be enough to snuff out their chances of beating a ranked opponent. Shooting 57% from the field and grabbing nine of your just 22 misses on the day goes a long way towards making up for that problem, but STOP IT.
- I didn’t realize that Alex Egbuonu threw in 14 points in just 13 minutes to lead Marquette in scoring until I opened up the box score to write this. I knew he hit three triples along the way, but that’s a tremendous job being a microwave off the bench by the freshman.
- Royce Parham was whistled for another hooking offensive foul at some point. That’s two in two exhibition games. Stop it.
- Damarius Owens played just 18 minutes. That’s not ideal for a guy who’s starting against the preseason #6 team in the country and seizing the mantle of being a defensive stopper. One foul, one turnover, made both of his shots. Just didn’t play half the game for whatever reason.
- Sananda Fru had eight points four rebounds, two assists, and a block in 22 foul hampered minutes. He keeps looking great, and he probably would have looked even better if he didn’t have four fouls. He even had a sick “reloading my arm” celebration after hitting a three-pointer. ASIDE: Marquette has a starting center who can defend his position and hit three-pointers. SEEMS GOOD.
- Speaking of Fru being limited by fouls! 1) Josh Clark played 10 minutes, so Marquette went without either of their obvious centers for eight minutes of the game. 2) Clark looked absolutely fine out there for his stretches, ending with four points and four rebounds. I should note that at least some of the “he looked fine” was against Anton Bonke, the Charlotte transfer that 1) played just three minutes here and 2) couldn’t play regularly for Kim English at Providence in 2024-25. I have no idea why anyone in East Lansing thought this was going to work out for them, and so far — Bonke started but played just six minutes in their 78-70 home exhibition loss to UConn — it is absolutely not working out for them.
- Ian Miletic and Nash Walker did not play at all in this game. Walker was dressed to play after missing the Green Bay exhibition due to concussion protocols, so it’s at least a little murky as to whether or not he was really available to play here. The writing is on the wall here for Miletic’s season already, and this is a bad sign for Walker.
Okay, that’s about all I’ve got, I think. You guys got to watch this one on YouTube, what stood out to you? What do you have questions about heading into next week’s opener against Mercyhurst?
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