Oh, man, didn't we just do one of these? Well, time to get back at it.
YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles roll into Morgantown tonight to take on the West Virginia Mountaineers. The Mountaineers are coming off getting absolutely torched by Notre Dame on Wednesday, 71-44. The loss dipped WVU to 7-8 in conference play and 17-11 overall. As of Tuesday, noted Bubble Watcher Andy Glockner had West Virginia listed as "in the mix" for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. I think it's safe to say that WVU will be desperate for a win to bolster their profile at this point, and a win over the #10 Golden Eagles fits that bill rather well.
As far as numbers go for this game, the only number that matters here is the number 1. Join me after the jump and I'll explain.
Only one player can be Big East Player Of The Year, and this game will feature three top candidates. Kevin Jones has been leading the Big East in both scoring and rebounding all season long. Even more impressively, he's averaging a double-double in the process with 20.4 points and 11.3 rebounds per game. But given his team's struggles this season, the door is open for someone else to take the Player Of The Year award away from him. Marquette has two of those players. The obvious one is Marquette's scoring leader, Darius Johnson-Odom. But as of yesterday, CBSSports.com updated their national player of the year watch to include Jae Crowder at number 10. Crowder's the only Big East player on the list, so the Big East's award may be the Absolut Weapon's award to lose at this point.
Continuing the theme of the number 1, Marquette and West Virginia have one last game to play before West Virginia departs for the Big 12 next season. Marquette will get one last chance to pick up a win in Morgantown, something that they have never done before. This is also the last scheduled time that Marquette will face off with long time archenemy Bob Huggins. Ever since Marquette joined the Great Midwest Conference along with a Huggins coached Cincinnati team back in 1991, Marquette fans have seen Bob Huggins standing in charge of the opposing bench 36 times. After tonight, it all comes to an end.
