The Golden Eagles do not have anyone on the preseason all-conference team after going 1-5-2 in league play last season.
The preseason coaches poll for Big East men’s soccer was released to the wild on Monday morning, and, well, if we’re being honest, it wasn’t exactly the greatest news in the world for YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles. Heading into David Korn’s first season as head coach, Marquette was picked to finish fifth in the Big East’s Midwest Division. Yes, there’s still divisional play in the Big East here, as Akron is still an affiliate member of the league.
Marquette picked up 25 points in the poll, where all 12 coaches voted in both divisions. The Golden Eagles are a little bit closer to DePaul in sixth and last place with 18 points than they are to fourth place Butler with 35 points. Akron is the favorite in the division with 62 points, but they only received seven of the first place votes. Second place went to Xavier with 56 points and four first place votes, while Creighton landed in third with 50 points and the last first place vote. Georgetown is the favorite over the East Division, and they picked up every vote except from their own head coach, as coaches can’t vote for their own teams.
Marquette did not factor into any of the individual awards this year, nor are there any Golden Eagles on the preseason all-conference team. I completely whiffed on all three of my individual award picks, and that’s how that goes sometimes. In fact, I overthought one of them, as I bypassed Providence’s Lukas Burns from the 2023 postseason awards to tab Alec McLachlan from St. John’s because of stats a year ago. Burns ended up being the choice of the coaches for the preseason honors now, and that’s on me. I can’t say I agree with anyone’s votes that got Butler’s Palmer Ault to Preseason Offensive Player of the Year because he’s not the best returning scorer in the league. Same goes for Georgetown’s Maximus Jennings, who wasn’t even a postseason all-Big East guy last year, not even on the Third Team, but is now Preseason Defensive Player of the Year.
As far as the all-conference team goes, I got eight of my 11 picks correct. I do have to point out that the Big East put 12 guys on the preseason all-BE team for some reason, so that did give me one extra spot to get a guy right. Two of my three misses were the two guys that I gave individual awards to, so I can’t be blamed for picking them to my team even if apparently I was very wrong.
Marquette begins the 2024 season on Thursday, August 22nd, when they host Drexel at Valley Fields. First kick is set for 5:30pm Central time, and the Golden Eagles will play Marist at home on Sunday at 2pm as well.
You can check out the entire preseason poll press release right here.