Other teams gotta move to let the Golden Eagles move, I suppose……
Marquette men’s basketball picked up their first notable win of the season on Friday night, but that didn’t particularly move the Associated Press top 25 voters. The Golden Eagles are still the #15 team in the country in Monday’s new AP poll, just like they were last week.
This is the 34th 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.
This time around, Marquette picked up 630 points in the polling. That leaves them just short of 100 points away from #14 Creighton and about 60 points ahead of #16 Indiana. It is 27 more points than they had a week ago, so that’s something.
Dylan Sinn and Mitchell Northam are Marquette’s top two supporters in the voting this week. They both have Marquette at #11 right now. MU has at least two votes at every spot between there and #18, and at least one vote all the way down to #22. No votes at #23, but Scott Richey brings up the rear at #24. Mike Hlas and Stephen Thompson, both of whom did not have MU in the poll at all last week, are now both ranking the Golden Eagles at #22.
We had a little bit of a shuffle towards the top of the AP poll after then-#2 Alabama lost at Purdue over the past week. As a result, UConn is now the #2 team in the country and the top ranked team on Marquette’s schedule this week. Iowa State moved up two spots to #5, while Purdue made a big jump from #13 to #6 after their win over the Tide to round out the MU foes in the top 10 right now.
We mentioned Creighton at #14, so we move along to #19 Wisconsin jumping from merely receiving votes to cleanly in the top 25 after blowing out then-#9 Arizona on Friday. St. John’s rounds out the ranked teams on the slate, coming in at #22, same as last week.
There’s a few familiar names in the Receiving Votes area this week. Xavier is the unofficial #28 team in the country with 89 points worth of votes, and they’re followed along (eventually) by Providence (4) and Maryland (1). The Terrapins got their one 25th place vote from Toyloy Brown from the Baton Rouge Advocate, and he has Marquette at #18. Interestingly, Brown did not have the Terps ranked last week, and he dropped MU from #17 a week ago. Weird!
Marquette returns to action on Tuesday night when they host #6 Purdue at Fiserv Forum. It’s probably going to draw some attention to FS1 when the game tips off at 8pm Central. After that, MU will head to the Bahamas for a game against Georgia on Saturday, and that one is being exclusively streamed on FloSports.
You can check out the entire top 25 right here and you can see how everyone voted for Marquette right here.