MILWAUKEE — (AP) — Marquette’s Kam Jones wants to spend this season honoring one of his high school coaches.
He’s off to a heck of a start.
Jones recorded the third triple-double in Marquette history Tuesday night by posting 17 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists in the 15th-ranked Golden Eagles' 76-58 victory over No. 6 Purdue. It was his first game since learning about the death of Terry Tippett, who coached Jones his freshman year at Evangelical Christian in Memphis, Tennessee.
Tippett died Saturday at age 79. He won six Tennessee state championships at three different high schools during a remarkable coaching career that ended in 2018, after Jones’ freshman season at Evangelical Christian.
“I wanted to really dedicate this game to him and dedicate the rest of the season to him,” Jones said.
Jones’ triple-double was the Golden Eagles’ first since Dwyane Wade had 29 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in an 83-69 NCAA Tournament regional final victory over Kentucky that earned Marquette its most recent Final Four appearance in 2003.
“It’s an honor to be in that type of company,” Jones said.
Marquette’s only other triple-double came when Tony Miller had 18 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists against Wisconsin on Dec. 31, 1994.
Jones’ 13 rebounds and 10 assists both constituted career highs, showing how the 6-foot-5 senior is expanding his game.
He led Marquette (5-0) in scoring each of the last two seasons averaging 15.1 points for their 2022-23 Big East championship team and 17.2 points for their 2023-24 Sweet 16 squad. But he was playing a complementary role to 2022-23 Big East player of the year Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro, who both were selected in the second round of this year's NBA draft.
With Kolek gone, Jones needed to develop into more of a distributor. He is scoring 22.6 points per game this season, but also averaging six assists. He never has finished a season with more than 2.4 assists per game.
“He’s always had better ability as a playmaker than people might think, but his role was a little different when we had Tyler and Oso because those guys were such good passers and distributors and we needed him to think, score, score, score," Marquette coach Shaka Smart said. “We still need him to score, but he also has the ball in his hands more and we need him to create opportunities for other guys.”
Purdue coach Matt Painter, whose team was facing Marquette for a third straight season, noticed the difference in Jones’ game.
“He came here as a shooter,” Painter said. “Now he’s a player.”
Jones was intent on getting others involved early in the game. He had just three points but six assists and seven rebounds in the first half. Ten of his 17 points came in the last 13 minutes of the game as Marquette expanded its lead.
He finally got the 10th assist to complete the triple-double by finding Stevie Mitchell for a corner 3-pointer with 51 seconds left as Marquette snapped Purdue's 39-game nonconference regular-season winning streak.
“He was like a seasoned veteran tonight,” Painter said. “He didn’t kill us until he had to, you know what I mean? He didn’t come out and shoot pull-up 30-footers or take bad shots. We did a good job, gave him a lot of attention and the game just kind of went its way, and then all of a sudden he picked his spots at the right time and he dominated the game in other areas.”
It was the 10th time since the 1996-97 season that a player had a triple-double against a top-10 team, according to Sportradar.
Jones' ability to impact the game in many ways other than scoring reflect the work he put in to become a more complete player.
“They say what’s done in the dark will come to light,” Jones said. “I was in the gym with Coach watching film — watching film before games, watching film late nights, early mornings, trying to constantly figure out ways to get better. That’s the name of the game.”
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