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MILWAUKEE - All that talk from South Florida guard Dominique Jones about a guaranteed win for his team backfired. It turned into a fifth straight conference win for Marquette at home as they won 63-52 at the Bradley Center.
Jones late last week posted comments on his Facebook page that the Bulls will beat the Golden Eagles. Steady defense by Marquette affected his game in front of over 18,000 fans and seven NBA scouts.
He scored 16 points, but it took a lot of effort by Marquette on the defensive end to cool his recent hot scoring streak.
"When you're guarding an early entry pro that's the leading scorer in the country since Christmas day, it's gonna take all you got," Marquette coach Buzz Williams said.
Sophomore guard Darius Johnson-Odom scored only three points because he had a more important job to do. He guarded Jones, holding him to 3 for 16 shooting at the half with eight points.
"I thought DJO was the player of the game," Williams said. "He expended about 98 percent of his energy on that (defensive) end of the floor. That's what gave us our best chance for success."
In all, Jones made only 6 of 21 shots, including a three-pointer, and 3 of 4 free-throws. According to USF coach, Stan Heath, that was an off-night for him.
"I thought Jones forced some things, took some hard shots," he said. "(Jones) made some of those before. They just didn't go down."
When the game was out of reach for South Florida (15-9, 5-7 Big East), senior forward Lazar Hayward heard very little from Jones.
"I said a little something to him," he said. "I said something to (USF's) Chris Howard, but it wasn't much going on. I'm sure (Jones) had that in the back of his mind. He was trying to help his team."
Along the way, Hayward passed Wesley Matthews and Tony Smith with his 18 points, ranking him seventh in team scoring history with 1,689 career points. "I'm lucky," he said. "I'm blessed to be in this opportunity. I can't say that I thought about it (scoring mark) at all."
"Terrific player," Heath said of Hayward. "I have a lot of respect for him."
Hayward did some trash-talking of his own to Matthews, a rookie shooting guard for the Utah Jazz who attended the game. "He was in the locker room. Everybody was messing with him," he said. "He's back home."
Hayward is waiting on Matthews' reaction of being passed up in scoring by his former teammate.
"(Matthews) hasn't said anything yet," Hayward said. "I'm sure he has something saved up for me."
Matthews came back to visit during the NBA All-Star break.
The Golden Eagles (16-8, 7-5) won their 50th Big East game since joining the conference in the 2005-06 season. Next up is a big challenge against Pittsburgh at home Wednesday.
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