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Marquette's 2012-13 Home Opener: Colgate

By Brewtown Andy
SYRACUSE, NY - NOVEMBER 19: Rakeem Christmas #25 of the Syracuse Orange dives as he shoots the ball against John Brandenburg #3 of the Colgate Raiders during the game at the Carrier Dome on November 19, 2011 in Syracuse, New York.
SYRACUSE, NY - NOVEMBER 19: Rakeem Christmas #25 of the Syracuse Orange dives as he shoots the ball against John Brandenburg #3 of the Colgate Raiders during the game at the Carrier Dome on November 19, 2011 in Syracuse, New York.

At this point, we're all aware that Marquette will open the 2012-13 men's basketball season on November 9th against Ohio State on the deck of an aircraft carrier. What we don't know is how the rest of the non-conference schedule shakes out, especially the *cough* non-marquee match ups.

That's where the ever informative Marquette athletic department comes in handy. Today they announced that the home opener for the upcoming season will be on November 11th against Colgate. The game is an "opening round" game of the 2012 Maui Invitational. In what qualifies as a bit of evil genius on the part of the athletic department, November 11th also happens to be the Sunday that the Green Bay Packers have scheduled as a bye week. Nicely done, folks.

Hit the jump and we'll talk about the challenges posed by the Raiders!

GoMarquette.com is full of handy information on Colgate, so let's hit the heavy numbers first:

Last season: 8-22
Conference record: 2-12 (7th place in the Patriot League)

And how about a quick summary as well?

Second-year head coach Matt Langel leads the Raiders into Milwaukee with leading scorer Pat Moore (9.9 points/game) returning for his senior season alongside starting point guard Mitch Rolls. The meeting, played before the Golden Eagles head to Hawaii for the championship rounds of the 2012 Maui Invitational, is the first contest between the two programs.

If we look at KenPom.com, we discover that Colgate finished last year ranked 316th. While that would have made Colgate the worst team that Marquette played last year, it's a different schedule this year. Marquette will play Ohio State, Florida, and some combination of three of the following teams in the Maui Invitational: Butler, Illinois, Mississippi State, North Carolina, Texas, USC, and Chaminade. Let's just say that I'm okay opening the home slate against a team that was lousy in the Patriot League last year.