Red-hot Marquette faces an equally hot Villanova squad.
Marquette and Villanova rumble into this Wednesday night encounter riding high. Each has a lengthy winning streak entering play against each other as MU has won four in a while while ‘Nova has won six straight. Both are playing great basketball right now and have posted strong efforts along the way. Now the trick for each will be to decipher the other and hope to come out victorious.
How to watch Marquette vs. Villanova
Time: 8 p.m. ET
TV: CBS Sports Network
Watch Online: CBSSports.com
Betting Odds
(via DraftKings Sportsbook)
Spread: Villanova -14 | Marquette +14
Total: 138
Moneyline: Villanova -1125 | Marquette +700
Despite their winning ways of late, Marquette is still a very heavy underdog. For good reason too probably, as Villanova has owned it at home this year. Their Average Scoring Margin at home of +29.2 ranks third in the entire country, trailing only Arizona and Nicholls State. Only once all season has a team eclipsed 60 points against Villanova at home: Howard, back on November 16.
Marquette will have to hope to be a buster of trends if they want to come up large here. That means they’ll probably lean heavily on Justin Lewis. Lewis has been MU’s go-to guy this season and has stepped up to the challenge. While his 3-point shooting could use work he’s still posted double figures in each of the last four games. This includes performances of 23 points vs. Providence and 18 in the last game against Seton Hall.
Villanova typically plays a very sound game at home this year. That includes taking care of the ball, where they average just 8.5 turnovers/game. They also only commit 12.2 fouls/game this season compared to Marquette’s 18.4 fouls/game. Needless to say, a lot of code-cracking will have to be done here by the Golden Eagles if they want to fly away happily with a win.