The Golden Eagles and the Sooners will face off at Illinois-Chicago’s arena on Black Friday…… for some reason
Back in late April, I published a post pointing out that we probably knew everything important about the Marquette men’s basketball non-conference schedule for the 2025-26 season. At Purdue and Wisconsin, home against Dayton and Maryland, two home games as part of a multi-team event with a neutral site game against Indiana in Chicago at the end…. that’s seven games, and MU only played 11 non-conference games last season.
I did, towards the end of that post, note that Marquette had replaced the Iowa State game with the Indiana game, which left the Georgia game without a high major replacement. I said that did leave space if Shaka Smart wanted to push his next team the way he pushed last year’s team…. but while losing three starters, I would understand if he chose not to do that.
Well, he did it.
On Wednesday, Marquette announced that they will play a neutral site game against Oklahoma. That contest is set for Friday, November 28th, 2025, and it will be played at Credit Union 1 Arena in Chicago, Illinois. That gives Marquette not one, but two neutral site games against high major opponents in The Windy City, as the Indiana game will be played at the United Center.
AT FACE VALUE, I have nothing against scheduling a neutral site game against Oklahoma. Well, mostly nothing. I prefer home arena games for crowd reasons. But other than that, there’s nothing wrong with scheduling an SEC team coming off an NCAA tournament appearance. That’s good work. It’s a little too early to dig in to who is and is not on that Sooners roster because of transfer portal reasons, but I’ll note that BartTorvik.com has Oklahoma at #28 in the preseason projections right now with a top 40 offense and defense. Should be a good opponent, and thus a good test for Marquette, no matter what.
Here’s what I don’t like about this.
I don’t like that it’s Marquette’s second neutral site game of the season, and I definitely do not like that it’s the second neutral site game in Chicago. I get why the Indiana game got set up, that’s beneficial to both sides, as there’s notable alumni bases for both schools in northeastern Illinois. MU running a second game for the benefit of the fans in Chicago seems a little much, almost to the extent that it’s taking away value from the Marquette season ticket holders…. or from Marquette’s bottom line when it comes to selling tickets at Fiserv Forum.
I don’t like that this game is at Illinois-Chicago’s arena. I’m sorry, but I automatically can’t take this seriously because MU is intentionally choosing to play a game at an 8,000 seat arena that is the home to a team in the Missouri Valley Conference. Part of that is entirely because of the words in that sentence and part of that is because the Indiana game is at the United Center, home to the Chicago Bulls. Is this game against OU going to be played with a gigantic UIC logo on the floor? Are Marquette and Oklahoma paying to get a custom neutral court dragged into Credit Union 1 Arena for this? That seems even sillier than playing on UIC’s floor if we’re being honest.
I don’t like that this game is on Black Friday. There’s two reasons on that one. The first is that I don’t like the idea of selling neutral site tickets on a holiday weekend when a lot of people are traveling. Whatever benefit you’re trying to get from putting a game in front of Marquette fans is slightly diminished by people leaving town for the holiday, and that’s after the novelty value of seeing Marquette play already got diminished by the Indiana game happening literally 19 days earlier in the same city.
The second reason is the fact that there are 7 college football games announced and scheduled for Black Friday already. Maybe they don’t all get on broadcast television, but that’s a lot of inventory to work around…. especially when you remember that there were 19 men’s basketball games on national television on Black Friday last year. Hey, you know what ESPN’s not doing? Taking the four games of the Battle 4 Atlantis off TV for this MU/OU game.
Now, with the Big East’s media deal expanding how many games are on NBC/Peacock and adding TNT Sports on top of that next season, combined with the SEC’s deal with ESPN, I feel pretty confident that this game is getting on TV somehow. Worst case scenario is that it’s on Peacock, or ESPN+, or HBO Max. I find it highly unlikely that this turns into a “two weeks out, we find out it’s on FloSports” situation.
You got thoughts about playing Oklahoma in Chicago on Black Friday? That’s what the comments section is for.
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook: AnonymousEagle
Instagram: AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky: AnonymousEagle