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Marquette falls to 1-2 in 2015 and lost their sixth straight game to a Big Ten opponent on Thursday night in their 89-61 defeat at the hands of the Iowa Hawkeyes.
The Hawkeyes rolled into the BMO Harris Bradley Center and walloped Marquette from bell to bell. There's no other way to really say it other than that Iowa opened up a can of whoop ass on Steve Wojciechowski's club and walked it dry.
Peter Jok led the way for Iowa with 20 points after scoring 11 in the first half. Five Iowa players got into double figures with Jarrod Uthoff scoring 15, Mike Gesell and Anthony Clemmons scoring 11, and Adam Woodbury and Dom Uhl netting 10 each.
Leading the way for MU on Thursday night in Milwaukee was freshman guard Haanif Cheatham who posted 12 points. Heralded recruit Henry Ellenson only notched three points after being held in check for most of the evening. The Rice Lake, Wisconsin native shot just 1-for-8 from the field.
Here's what we learned from this game.
1. Iowa can shoot the rock
Over the last few seasons, Iowa has been one of the most efficient teams in the country on the offensive end. The Hawkeyes were the No. 5 team in the nation in Adjusted Offensive Efficiency in the 2013-14 campaign. That year, they scored a staggering 119.8 points per 100 possessions. Last year, the Hawkeyes scored 111.4 points per 100 possessions, good for 29th-best in the country. This year, and in this game, they appear to have picked up from where they left off. The visitors scored 1.187 points per possession Thursday night on 75 possessions. They shot 54.5 percent from the 3-point line on 22 attempts, and from the floor as well on 66 field goal attempt. The Hawkeyes' dominance in Milwaukee on Thursday night can be attributed mostly to their dazzling display on offense.
2. Marquette's shot selection must improve
The first half numbers weren't especially pretty for Marquette (Then again, neither were the final) but what sticks out is their 2-for-19 mark from the perimeter. Often times, a lot of the shots that MU was taking during the course of the game were head-scratching to say the least and it was evident from the jump that they were not there from the perimeter on Thursday night. The second half numbers improved a bit as they shot 5-for-11 from deep, but on the whole Marquette simply has to do better with regards to the choices they make before shooting the ball.
3. There are growing pains running amok
Before you go panicking and calling for the head coach's head or anything drastic like that, remember that this is a young team. This was a painful performance, yes. There's hardly any excuse for it. MU was outclassed in just about every single area and got smoked by a Hawkeyes team that was very much underdiscussed amongst the Big Ten contenders this offseason. Ellenson looked off, and many of the players on the team did not do their part. But, this is what will typically happen you have a crop of young players who have minimal experience in the college game. It was often said that Marquette could be a "wild card" in the BIG EAST if all the pieces were put together. There's still some time to gel even with MU's showdown looming with Antonio Blakeney, Ben Simmons and the LSU Tigers on November 23. Growing pains are running amok in Milwaukee. It's now just a matter of how well they adjust to them.