Well, most of it. The Big East controlled games are set, at least.
It’s been nearly three weeks since we got the Big East men’s basketball schedule, so it’s loooooong since been time for us to get an update with tip times and television assignments. That update came on Wednesday morning, and so now we know how and when we’ll be able to watch all but four games on the Marquette men’s basketball schedule, and there’s at least good-adjacent reasons why all four of those are still up in the air.
Here’s the full schedule as we know it right now with television assignments and start times.
Here’s what you need to know:
- The Big East’s new deal with NBC/Universal and Peacock is already screwing Marquette over. MU will make their debut on the paid streaming service on Friday, November 8 against George Mason…….. which is the home game at the McGuire Center designated as Students Only. Look, I get that there’s thousands of Marquette fans who do not live near Milwaukee and attend games regularly much less hold season tickets, but putting the game that’s not at Fiserv Forum on Peacock is garbage, pure and simple. I say that as someone who’s already paying for Peacock, by the way.
- That game is one of four Peacock games this season for Marquette. Two of the other three contests are road games (at Seton Hall & at Georgetown), while the final one is the home date against DePaul. I definitely think it’s weird that half of MU’s games against what could be the three worst teams in the league are on Peacock. That’s not exactly leveraging your advantage there, y’know?
- Marquette matches their Peacock appearances with four spots on CBS Sports Network. Three of those are Big East games…. and they’re the same three opponents as the Peacock games. This can not possibly be a coincidence. The fourth is a game that’s not in the Big East’s contractual control, as it’s the road game against Dayton on December 14th.
- There are four games locked in for Big Fancy Broadcast Fox this season. Those are, in order: Wisconsin, at Xavier, Connecticut, and at Creighton. The UConn game is National Marquette Day, with a 7pm start time set for February 1st. MU could end up on Fox twice more, but that’s up to Fox Sports to decide at a later date. The home date with Xavier on January 18th will be determined by the NFL’s playoff schedule, while Senior Night against St. John’s in the regular season finale will get decided as late as possible to put the most interesting games in the best broadcast windows.
- There are two FS2 games, and they’re in the same week. The week in question is Thanksgiving week, so if you’ve got holiday plans, don’t worry too much if your cable package doesn’t include FS2. That’s home against Stonehill on Wednesday night and Saturday afternoon against Western Carolina, by the way.
- I already mentioned the St. John’s game that we don’t know the TV assignment or start time for as one of the four that are completely up in the air right now. Two of the remainders are understandable, as they’re the road games against Maryland and Iowa State. Those games are under the contractual control of the Big Ten and the Big 12 respectively, so we have to wait for their schedules to be set.
- The fourth and final game that we don’t know about is the neutral site game against Georgia at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas. That game was announced nearly nine months ago. No, I don’t know why Marquette has agreed to a one-off game that’s a 5 hour plane ride away without any concrete agreements to televise the game, even on a streaming-only platform, with seven weeks to go. BOLD PREDICTION: This is going to end up streaming on FloSports, which is added value for someone like me who has a subscription for blogging reasons, but bad for you if you aren’t interested in soccer, volleyball, or lacrosse. BOLD ANALYSIS: Whoever thought this was a good idea is bad at their job and should definitely not get a raise or a promotion.
I think that’s everything that’s immediately obvious to me. Anything I missed that stands out to you? That’s what the comments section is for.