Freshman Adrien Stevens scored a career-high 21 points while leading Marquette to a dominant 78-56 road victory over Providence on Wednesday night.
Nigel James Jr. added 20 for Marquette (11-19, 6-13 Big East), while Royce Parham and Tre Norman each scored nine points. The Golden Eagles won their final two road games of the season after losing each of their first 12 away from home.
James grabbed a team-high seven rebounds, and Stevens snatched four steals.
The boo-birds frequently came out from the Senior Night crowd in Providence for a Friars team that saw its three-game win streak come to an end.
Jaylin Sellers led the Friars (14-16, 7-12 Big East) with 18 points. Providence committed 19 turnovers that led to 29 points shot just 30.9% from the floor including 7-for-30 (23.3%) from deep.
Ryan Mela added 17 points and eight rebounds for Providence, and Oswin Erhunmwunse also pulled down eight boards.
Marquette stormed out ahead early, suffocating Providence with a defensive pressure that has not been there much of this season.
The Golden Eagles rattled off a 14-1 run to go up 28-10, as they did not allow a field goal for a stretch of nearly 10 minutes.
The turnovers were the biggest factor as Marquette forced a staggering 13 Friars giveaways in the half, leading to 20 points.
However, Marquette couldn’t keep that momentum up the entire half as it went on a field-goal drought of four-plus minutes. Providence cut the deficit to 37-23 going into halftime.
Marquette’s offense picked back up at the start of the second half. The Golden Eagles had a 6-of-7 shooting stretch from the floor, including two 3-pointers from Stevens and one from James, to take a commanding 52-29 lead.
The Golden Eagles registered their sixth straight victory over the Friars, sweeping the regular-season series for the second straight year.
–Field Level Media
