Oso Ighodaro and Kam Jones lead Marquette to a Big East road victory over Seton Hall

NEWARK, N.J. – A week-long break is a good time for a vibe check, and the vibes are strong with the Marquette men’s basketball team.

The Golden Eagles wrapped up a busy stretch of three games in six days by running away from Seton Hall for a 74-53 victory on Saturday at the Prudential Center.

MU (16-5, 8-2 Big East) has reached the halfway point of the conference season, and it has evolved into a traveling band of acrobatic dunkers on offense and rhythm disruptors on defense.

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The show doesn’t please every audience, just ask the Pirates (12-9, 5-5) or the home fans among the 9,796 people at the place affectionately known as “The Rock.”

“I’m going to keep it very simple for you guys today,” Seton Hall coach Shaheen Holloway said. “Very simple. Give Marquette a lot of credit. We got our (expletive) kicked. Period.”

With a natural break in the schedule, MU coach Shaka Smart’s next act is to avoid a late slide like last season. But there is something different about this group.

“I told the guys ‘Have you ever run a mile?' ” Smart said. “And they all nodded their head. This was after we played five games and I said, OK, you’ve just ran a lap in a mile. You’ve run one lap; a mile’s four laps.

“So now we’ve run two laps and anyone that’s run a mile knows, that third and fourth lap are tough. So as a team, we’ve got a unique situation where we don’t play again for a week and our guys kind of need some rest because they’re kind of banged up. I canceled shootaround today because I could just sense that resting a little more might help them.”

Marquette’s defense forces 26 turnovers and gets 44 deflections

MU’s offense has been the driving force of the surprising season, but the Golden Eagles have enough depth and athleticism to wreak havoc on opponents on defense.

The Pirates were thrown completely out of rhythm, coughing up the ball 13 times in each half. MU soared past its target of 32 deflections with well over 12 minutes remaining and finished with 44.

“We had 47 deflections against them last time,” Smart said. “And that was a season high. So we really challenged our guys.

“That was a good recipe for winning that first game, but that’s easier to do at home. And now we’re on the road in hostile territory and can we get our hands on the basketball? We felt like the way they were going to throw the ball in the post, we needed to have that hand activity.”

There are still higher levels that MU can reach on the defensive end.

“I think the sky is the limit for us,” Oso Ighodaro said. “We just got to keep getting better. Keeping it at the front of our mind that we need to guard.

“Our offense is so much fun that sometimes we get too focused on that side of the ball. But we know we have the capability to guard and we’ll just keep getting better at it.”

Ighodaro makes all seven of his shots for KenPom's No. 1 team in offensive efficiency

MU shooting guard Kam Jones was his usual explosive self, with 22 points on 8-for-14 shooting.

But Ighodaro has shown more confidence and aggressiveness in looking for his own shot, and he made all seven of his attempts to finish with 18 points.

“That’s something I’m still growing at,” Ighodaro said. “My teammates and coaches keep telling me to be aggressive, stay aggressive.

“I’m just trying to keep doing that with the ball in my hands. Look to score and then the passing lanes will open up after that.”

BOX SCORE: Marquette at Seton Hall

Ighodaro as a scoring threat gives a new dimension to a MU offense that ascended earlier this week to No. 1 in efficiency at college basketball statistical website KenPom.com. Nobody saw that coming, not even Smart.

“I knew we did have some really unique pieces it was just a matter of getting them to come together,” Smart said. “We were playing like three-on-three, four-on-four, two-on-two in the spring.

“And it was like Oso and Kam and Tyler (Kolek) and O-Max (Prosper) and it was just like, man, these guys if they can figure it out in terms of how to co-exist and operate and help each other, they can be really, really good. And so they’ve done a good job through 21 games of growing in that way.”

Oso Ighodaro and Chase Ross have highlight reel of dunks

Ighodaro viciously attacked the rim for four dunks. He even displayed a Giannis Antetokounmpo-like “stink face” that would draw a grimace of approval from the Milwaukee Bucks star.

“Koby McEwen, he went here, he’s been texting me telling me I don’t celebrate my dunks enough,” Ighodaro said. “So I’ve been trying to add a little something for him.”

Smart loves that side of Ighodaro.

“The most exciting thing with him is he’s becoming more of a dude,” Smart said. “He’s kind of coming into his own as in ‘Yeah, I’m a really good player, man. I don’t take a backseat to anybody.’

“Sometimes when you’re a great guy and high character and you have humility that takes some time. But you can see him gaining confidence and gaining assertiveness.

“I thought the game kind of broke open for us when we put the ball in his hands. We set a pick-and-roll for him, he got downhill and dunked the ball. Then the ball came back to him and he got a keeper where he faked the handoff and drove, got the and-one. He’s just a really unique player in that we play him at the five spot but he’s really a guard out there at 6-10.”

Ighodaro didn’t have the highlight of the game for MU. That honor belonged to Chase Ross. The freshman guard detonated a one-handed slam over Seton Hall’s KC Ndefo, who earned several defensive player of the year awards last season at Saint Peter’s.

“I mean I’ve seen him do that so many times in practice,” Ighodaro said. “I didn’t see it coming. But that’s what he does.”

The vibes are indeed strong.

“I’m kind of old school,” Smart said. “If I’m playing, I want silence and I’m locked in and no joking around. Our guys are in the locker room clowning around.

“But, you know what? That’s Kam Jones. I could tell him to be like me, but I don’t shoot it as well as him. So I would rather him be like him.”

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Marquette beats Seton Hall at Prudential Center in Big East game