Well, would you look at that.
Over the past week, Marquette men’s basketball beat the #10 team in the country, lost to the #22 team in the country, and beat two Major Seven conference opponents on a neutral floor. All in all, a pretty good week. However, with said #10 team — Illinois — missing their best player for that game due to a suspension from the NCAA, I didn’t expect to see the Associated Press voters pay respect to the Golden Eagles for their victory.
I. WAS. WRONG!
The new poll came out on Monday morning, and LO AND BEHOLD, Marquette has snagged 41 points in the voting. That drops the Golden Eagles between Michigan State with 44 points and Colorado State with 30 points. Unofficially, Marquette is the #32 team in the country as a result.
That’s pretty neat.
It’s the first time that Marquette has received any votes in the AP poll since the December 7th, 2020, edition of the top 25. That was the second in-season poll of the 2020-21 campaign, and the Golden Eagles were coming off a win over #4 Wisconsin at the time. MU earned 22 points in that poll. This is Marquette’s highest point total in the AP poll since they picked up exactly 41 points in the February 24, 2020 top 25 rankings.
Marquette’s top spot in the rankings is…. wait, what? NUMBER 11?? David Jablonski of the Dayton Daily News has the Golden Eagles just outside the top 10 after this past week. That’s bold, sir. MU also picked up one vote each at #17, #19, #21, and #23, and two voters had them at #25. No disrespect to the wide majority of the voters who elected to leave the Golden Eagles off their ballot this week, as you can easily see how you can get there with Kofi Cockburn missing the Illinois game.
UCLA is the top ranked team on Marquette’s schedule in this week’s poll, as the Bruins come in at #2 in the country. Villanova is the best Big East team in the rankings, coming in at #7 and down two spots from last week. Illinois slipped to #14 after losing to Marquette, while St. Bonaventure jumped from #22 to #16 after defeating the Golden Eagles on Sunday evening.
Seton Hall jumps into the top 25 after beating Michigan last week, while UConn moves up one spot to #22. Xavier joins the Pirates as a new top in the rankings, snagging the final top in the 25 by just six points over Oregon.
Marquette is off until after Thanksgiving. The Golden Eagles will be back in Fiserv Forum — we’ll have to wait to see if it’s on their court or the Milwaukee Bucks court — on Saturday evening when they face Northern Illinois. Tipoff is set for 7pm Central on FS2.
You can check out the entire top 25 right here.