The Golden Eagles played one relatively uninteresting game against DePaul and advanced thanks to movement around them.
Sometimes the key to making moves in the Associated Press top 25 poll is to merely not do anything to draw attention to yourself. Take Marquette men’s basketball this past week. As the #18 team in the country, they posted an unremarkable 10 point home win over DePaul and took the rest of the week off. As a result, because everyone else was being crazy, Marquette is the #16 team in the country in Monday’s brand new AP top 25.
Here’s my point:
- #7 Purdue lost at Michigan and at home to Wisconsin
- #11 Michigan State lost to Indiana for their third loss in their last four games before rallying to beat Illinois on Saturday
- #13 Arizona lost to Kansas State and Houston
- #14 Memphis lost at Wichita State
- #15 Kentucky lost at Texas
- #17 Kansas lost at Utah, dropping them to 3-4 in their last seven games
- #19 Ole Miss lost an Egg Bowl to in-state rival Mississippi State
Marquette just stood still and let good things come to them.
The Golden Eagles picked up 527 points this week. That has them in between #15 Missouri, which jumped up six points in the rankings (speaking of letting good things come to them, as wins over Oklahoma and Georgia aren’t that impressive) with 573 points this week and new #17 Kentucky at 518 points. Kind of close there, but I suspect all of those losses that I mentioned a second ago kind of made things tumultuous in terms of getting any kind of consensus on just about anyone in the country except for Auburn.
This is the 47th 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.
Zach Klein is Marquette’s biggest fan this week, moving the Golden Eagles up from #12 last week to #10 in the country on his ballot right now. After that, MU got at least three votes at every spot between #11 and #19. No one voted Marquette at #20, but then two at #21, four at #22, and two at #23. Four people didn’t put Marquette in their top 25 at all: Bob Ballou and Reece Van Faaften, both of whom dropped the Golden Eagles from #24 a week ago, as well as Mike Hlas and Victor Flores, who also left MU out of the rankings last week.
Iowa State moved up two spots this week to #8 in the country and thus take over as the best ranked team on Marquette’s schedule this week. St. John’s fell one spot, but that still means that two teams on MU’s slate are in the top 10. We’re not that far from three, as Wisconsin jumped up five spots to #11 right now. Purdue dropped six spots to #13 due to the aforementioned losing over the past week. Maryland vaults up to #20 in the country at the moment to round out the list of ranked teams that faced MU this year.
Down in Receiving Votes, you’ll find Creighton with 27 points worth of votes after the Bluejays dropped out of the rankings after being #24 last week. UConn (20 points) continues to tumble, going down four spots in the rankings to be the unofficial #31 team in the country, while George Mason (15 points) is right behind them..
You can check out the entire top 25 right here, and you can see how everyone voted for Marquette right here.
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