The FIRST PLACE GOLDEN EAGLES play their first home game in Big East play.
Hey! The NCAA published the first RPI of the year for men’s soccer earlier this week! That means we can get a little bit of a look at how YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles are doing beyond “hey, 5-3-1 is pretty decent.”
Through games played on September 25th (I’m working ahead here, people), Marquette is #55 in the RPI. That’s out of 212 Division 1 teams, and it’s important to note that for these purposes, Marquette is actually 4-3-1 on the year because games against non-Division 1 opponents don’t count here.
#55 makes Marquette the fifth best team in the Big East, and it was close. Seton Hall’s sitting at #50, which is fascinating seeing as the Pirates are also #15 in the United Soccer Coaches poll this week. Turns out staying undefeated until you play a Providence team that’s currently #3 in the RPI is good for your poll ranking but not so much for the ol’ RPI.
Turns out, “doing nothing” is also very good for your RPI. Just this week alone, Marquette has improved from #71 in the RPI to #55 based on nothing but other matches happening around the country. Sadly, MU will not be able to continue this trend much longer since apparently they’re being required to continue to play matches instead of just letting the RPI improve on its own.
I don’t think we can quite say that Marquette’s #55 RPI ranking has them in a position to be considered for an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament at this point. We can say that they haven’t taken any bad losses yet though, and that’s good news. All three of MU’s defeats this season have come against teams ahead of them in the RPI, including two in the top 15, and both of those matches were on the road. Can’t help but figure that the Golden Eagles would be in a much better position if they didn’t have a scoreless draw against #83 Purdue Fort Wayne on the docket, but that’s how it goes sometimes.
To a certain extent, Marquette’s a little bit lucky to be where they are. They needed two penalty kick goals to beat Villanova in their last match, and sure, since both of those goals came in the first 22 minutes of the match, it’s hard to say what would have happened without them. The problem with that is the fact that #193 Villanova is the worst RPI team on the schedule right now, and Marquette miiiiiiight have been lucky to beat them. MU’s going to need much better performances as league play rolls along if they want to end up in the postseason, and that includes getting into the Big East tournament.
REMINDER: Marquette’s home contests are streamed nearly exclusively on FloSports, as are all Big East home matches and all league schedule contests. If you are paying full price for FloSports at $30 a month, you are doing it wrong. Please use this link to pay less than half of that, and even less if you can use a Marquette.edu email address.
Big East Match #2: vs Butler Bulldogs (3-4-2, 0-1-0 Big East)
Date: Saturday, September 28, 2024
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteSoccer
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 8-7-1 all time against Butler. The early and late portions of the series have been favoring the Golden Eagles, while the Bulldogs won four straight between 2014 and 2017. Marquette is 4-2-1 in the last seven encounters, including a 2-0 victory in Indianapolis last season.
Butler comes into this match with losses in their last three matches and only one win in their last six. Weirdly, the Bulldogs have been more competitive — at least on the scoreboard — in the two matches that you might least expect them to end up there. They went to a 1-1 draw with perennial national power Indiana and lost 1-0 to then-#12 Ohio State.
And then they lost 3-2 to Wright State back on Tuesday night at home. In their defense, WSU scored the game winner on a penalty kick that was generated by a red card on BU’s Peter Tolkin in the 81st minute, and then the Bulldogs scored with just 10 men while Wright State could have just stood around doing nothing for 10 minutes.
But still! That’s not great! Wright State is in the bottom half of the RPI! Wright State lost 4-1 to DePaul!
Josemir Gomez and Ryan Hannosh are currently tied for the team lead in points, but they’ve gotten there through different means. Gomez leads the team in goals with six, and when the Big East updates their stats eventually, that might be the best goal total in the league. Gomez was tied with Akron’s Emil Jaaskelainen with five before he booted one in against Wright State. Hannosh is still in that tie with five goals, and he’s added three assists to his production to tie Gomez at 13 points here. Palmer Ault is the team leader in assists, having made the pass on four of Butler’s 17 goals this season.
Caleb Norris has played every minute in goal so far this season, and from the “more competitive on the scoreboard” part from before, you’ve probably not surprised to find out that he’s struggling to keep balls out of his net. The 6’5” grad student is only stopping 66% of shots on goal and so his goals-against average is up at 1.78 per 90 minutes. I guess the good news is that Butler’s actually outshooting opponents by nearly four shots per game?