That’s probably good news for the long term trajectory of the Golden Eagles in the top 25 this season.
We’ve got a week of men’s college basketball games under our belt here in the 2024-25 season, and so it’s time for the Associated Press top 25 poll voters to reassess what they think about the best teams in the country with real results.
The top line news for you, the discerning Marquette fan? MU is better than originally thought, as the new voting totals have the Golden Eagles at #15 in the country. That’s up three spots from the preseason poll, and it’s always a good thing to be moving up in the world.
This is the 33rd consecutive week that Marquette has been in the AP top 25 after appearing in all 21 polls a year ago. We have not seen a run like this in the Associated Press poll since the 1970s, and hooooooooboy, we’re in for a treat if Shaka Smart gets to this mark. This is the longest AP run since MU appeared in every ranking from December 29, 1969 through December 3, 1979. Nearly 10 full years! 166 consecutive polls! Al McGuire was good at his job.
Marquette earned 603 points in the polling this week. That lands them between #14 Creighton (hey, we know those guys!) with 752 points and just ever so slightly ahead of #16 Indiana with 600 points on the nose.
Even with Marquette moving up the charts, not everyone is on board with MU as a top 25 team. Mike Hlas and Stephen Thompson had them outside the top 25 to start the year, and there’s nothing about wins over Stony Brook or George Mason that changed their minds. Fair enough. Scott Richey was in that group last week, but he’s got the Golden Eagles at #24 now.
Marquette picked up at least one vote at every spot between #11 and #18 this week. David Jablonski from the Dayton Daily News is the top supporter right now as the only voter with MU at #11. The most popular spot to put Marquette is #16, as there’s 14 voters with that on their ballot. No one has MU at #19, but there’s at least one voter at 20, 21, and 22, a skip at 23, and then Jeff Rabjohns joining Scott Richey in the #24 spot.
UConn is the top ranked team on Marquette’s schedule this season. The Huskies are still #3 in the country, just as they were in the preseason poll, and they have seven voters installing them as the #1 team in the land. Iowa State joins UConn in the top 10 this week, although the Cyclones are down two spots to #7 now.
Purdue comes in at #13 this week, one spot up from last week. We already mentioned Creighton at #14, so the only other ranked team on the schedule that we need to mention is St. John’s. The Red Storm vault into the top 25 here at #22 after falling just a little bit short in the preseason poll.
Xavier leads the group of teams on MU’s schedule in the Receiving Votes department. They picked up 78 points to be the unofficial #29 team in the country right now. Skim through there, and you’ll also find Wisconsin (6 points), Providence (4), and Maryland (3).
Marquette returns to action in just a few short hours as they wrap up the Marquette Challenge with a home date against Central Michigan. After that, they’ll play their first road game of the season when they visit Maryland and their one 23rd place vote on Friday.
You can check out the entire top 25 right here and you can see how everyone voted right over here.