Marquette Men’s Basketball Moves Up In The New Associated Press Poll

Well, it was a week without basketball for Marquette, but the rest of the country kept right on chugging over the past seven days.

The twists and turns of the college basketball season have led Marquette to move up one spot in the Associated Press poll from last week. MU is now the #20 team in the country, up from #21 a week ago. They earned 350 points this week, which has them between #19 Kentucky at 377 points and #21 Houston at 266 points.

The Golden Eagles have achieved something approaching a bell curve in their voting pattern, with Shannon Ryan of the Chicago Tribune leading the way with Marquette at #13 on her ballot. There are still eight voters who are not enthused about the direction of Steve Wojciechowski’s team this season, although perhaps that has more to do with lack of enthusiasm for Kansas State or Wisconsin, both of whom were ranked #12 in the country when Marquette defeated them.

Kansas still leads the way in the top 25 in terms of MU’s opponents this season, and I presume that they will remain #1 in the country until they lose a game. The most interesting ranking of the week when it comes to Marquette opponents is the #14 for Buffalo. The Bulls stay steady this week and will avoid the newly discovered Fiserv Forum Curse Of #12 on Friday night. Wisconsin are also steady this week at #16, while Indiana jumps up three spots to #22.

You’ll notice a lack of mention of another Big East team in that paragraph, and yes, MU is the only ranked Big East team right now. St. John’s, believe it or not, is the next closest team with 59 points in this week’s poll, while Villanova picked up 52 points after losing to Penn and Kansas over the past seven days. There’s a few other Marquette opponents down here: Kansas State snagged 90 points after losing to Tulsa in an ugly affair, and Louisville picked up six points.

MU returns to action on Tuesday night. They’ll be hosting North Dakota at Fiserv Forum with tipoff set for 8pm Central and broadcast set for FS1.

You can check out the full poll right here and the full breakdown of every ballot right here.