This is what happens when you lose to a team that’s under .500 on the year, even if it was on the road.
After a week off following the home win over Villanova, Marquette men’s basketball went 0-2 this past week with road losses to Connecticut and Butler. They did that while ranked #18 in the country in the Associated Press poll, so the obvious question is: What will the poll voters do with the Golden Eagles after that?
Turns out, the answer is, mostly speaking: drop them out of the top 25.
The new AP poll is out on Monday morning, as it always is, and officially, Marquette is no longer ranked in the top 25. They are, however, receiving votes, and in fact, MU is the unofficial #26 team in the country right now.
The Golden Eagles snagged 77 points in the voting, which leaves them just three points short of #25 Alabama’s 80 points. It’s also a sizeable chunk in front of Xavier’s 51 points, who also dropped out of the top 25 after going 1-1 last week.
Seth Davis of CBS Sports and The Athletic is Marquette’s biggest fan amongst the voting public right now. He put the Golden Eagles at #16 in the country, which is down two spots from where Davis had them last week. MU snagged one vote each at #17 and #19 with nothing at #18, and then there’s a skip. Four voters have MU at #22, and seven put them at #23. Four more went with #24 this week while six voters, including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s own Ben Steele, have Marquette at #25. 36 voters in total left the Golden Eagles off the ballot. Somewhere, Jesse Newell quietly thinks “I told you so” to himself.
Providence is now a top 10 team. The Friars moved up three spots to #8 since last week to continue their run as the top ranked team on Marquette’s schedule this week. Villanova is next at #10, up five spots. Illinois comes in at #12, up one spot as they flipped possessions with UCLA. Wisconsin has slipped a spot to #15, while Connecticut is staying steady at #24 to be the last ranked team on MU’s schedule this time around.
Marquette returns to action on Wednesday night when they return to Fiserv Forum as well. It’ll be Georgetown lining up on the other side of the court, and depending on how their Monday night trip to Omaha goes, the Hoyas could be riding a 14 game losing streak when that game tips off at 7pm Central on FS2.
You can check out the entire top 25 right here and look at which voter had Marquette where right here.