Marquette stops South Florida

After carrying the University of South Florida to its first four-game Big East win streak, Dominique Jones has found the going tough trying to carry the Bulls' offense in back-to-back losses.

Jones was harassed into another poor-shooting effort by a plethora of Marquette defenders in a 63-52 loss Saturday night.

"Dominique's like a furnace. He can either heat up your house or he can burn it down," USF coach Stan Heath said. "And I've got to get him to heat it up and not let him burn it down."

USF (15-9, 5-7) fell into sole possession of 10th place in the Big East as Jones drew plenty of attention. Marquette (16-8, 6-6) was bent on revenge for last season's loss to USF that ended a 12-game win streak and for Jones' supposed "guarantee" on Facebook that USF would win Saturday.

Jones averaged 35.0 points on 55.3 percent shooting during the win streak to vault the Bulls into contention for an NCAA berth. He finished with 16 points on 6-for-21 shooting after making three of 17 for 10 points last weekend at Notre Dame.

"He's gotta work a little harder to get some easier looks and our team has got to do a better job of kind of freeing him up," Heath said. "He really tried to force the issue earlier than normal."

Marquette guards Darius Johnson-Odom, David Cubillan and Maurice Acker all took turns on Jones, who had four free throws for the second straight game. Still, USF led by seven early in a fairly evenly played first half.

The game turned shortly after a technical on Marquette coach Buzz Williams led to a free throw and basket by Jones that gave USF its final lead at 25-23. Jimmy Butler scored four points in an 8-2 spurt that gave the Golden Eagles a 31-27 lead at the break.

The game marked the return of USF's Gus Gilchrist, who checked in at the 15:30 mark of the first half for his first action since Dec. 2 after missing 15 games with a sprained right ankle. Gilchrist had seven points and three rebounds.