Entering the final week of the Big East regular season, Marquette men’s basketball (22-7, 13-5 Big East) is currently sitting at third in the conference and No. 20 in the AP poll. While St. John’s just recently secured the regular season championship as well as the No. 1 seed in the Big East Tournament, the Golden Eagles have continued to find themselves scrapping for higher seeding with the same few culprits, one of those being the fourth-placed UConn Huskies.
The Huskies currently sit at 12-6 in conference play, only a game behind the Golden Eagles, and there will most likely be a fresh taste of bad blood between the two sides when they square off in Storrs this Wednesday night.
The last time these two matched up, UConn notably bested the Golden Eagles on Feb. 1st during National Marquette Day, where a striped-out Fiserv Forum was silenced by coach Dan Hurley’s boys behind a 25-point, 11-rebound outing by sophomore guard Solo Ball.
That wasn’t the only recent case of Husky blues from Marquette either; ever since head coach Shaka Smart’s group beat them in the 2023 Big East semifinals en route to their first Big East Tournament title, UConn has won four straight against the Golden Eagles, including last year’s Big East championship.
Despite Marquette winning four out of its last five, none of those games were against the other top three in the conference (St. John’s, Creighton, UConn), against whom the Golden Eagles are 1-3 so far this season.
For Marquette, it comes in on a two-game win streak, and there have been plenty of key developments recently that might be at the core of a winning end to the season. Despite not leading in scoring during the current streak, senior guard Kam Jones has tallied 20 assists in the last two games, with junior forward Ben Gold and senior forward David Joplin respectively picking up the scoring slack with 17 in those double-digit victories.
With Gold getting back into his groove, there is more space than ever for leading ball-handlers like Jones, Joplin, and senior guard Stevie Mitchell to manipulate the defense and facilitate at will, and heading into Wednesday, Coach Smart’s group currently ranks 19th in the country in 3-pointers attempted (29.0).
On the other hand, the Huskies might not be living up to the expectations of their back-to-back national titles as they are currently unranked with a 20-9 record, but they have still won four of their last six. Currently sitting at fourth in the Big East, UConn have compiled a two-game win streak of their own behind back-to-back 20+ point performances from junior center Tarris Reed Jr.
For the first time this season, Smart will also have to game-plan for first-year forward Liam McNeeley. The Texas native was a top 10 recruit in the class of 2024 as part of a legendary Montverde Academy roster but missed UConn’s first encounter against Marquette with a high ankle sprain but has since averaged 15 points and six rebounds per game.
With highly coveted seeding in the Big East tournament on the line, it wouldn’t be surprising if Marquette and UConn faithful are in for a good old-fashioned Big East battle Wednesday evening between two of the most successful programs the conference has had to offer over the last decade.
This article was written by Eamon Bevan. He can be reached at eamon.bevan@marquette.edu.