Marquette Men’s Basketball Ranked #18 In New Associated Press Poll

On Friday night, Marquette men’s basketball beat #14 Buffalo, 103-85. It was the third straight top 15 victory for the Golden Eagles, and the third in just a 21 day stretch. MU picked up that win while ranked #20 in the country in the Associated Press poll.

On Monday, the AP put out a brand new top 25, and Marquette is up to #18 in the country. The Golden Eagles wrapped up 538 points in this week’s poll, putting them between #17 Arizona State at 626 points and #19 Mississippi State at 518 points.

The majority of Marquette’s votes this week came in the #19 spot with 14 voters placing the Golden Eagles there. Shannon Ryan of the Chicago Sun-Times continues to lead the way as the biggest MU proponent in the voting body, as she has Marquette at #10 in the country this week.

There are three voters who do not have Marquette in the top 25 at all after beating the #12 team in the country twice and the #14 team in the country once during the month of December. Your names to watch: Scott Wolf (Los Angeles Daily News), Jesse Newell (Kansas City Star), and Damien Sordelett (Lynchburg (VA) News & Advance). At least they’re consistent from last week, I suppose. Mr. Sordelett’s ballot is the most confounding one, as he has Buffalo at #17, Kansas State at #20, and Wisconsin at #21. I’m not going to bang on him for voting for UB or UW anywhere in his poll, as they’ve pretty much proven that they deserve to be in there somewhere. K-State, on the other hand, followed up their loss to Marquette with a loss to Tulsa and a struggle of a win against Southern Miss. All three of those teams have been felled by Marquette since the first of the month, and if you think all three are top 25 teams, then MU has to be in your top 25 somewhere. Sorry, but them’s the facts.

Marquette’s best opponent this season pops up at #5 this week as Kansas takes a tumble from the top spot after losing to Arizona State over the weekend. Wisconsin shows up at #15, up one spot better than last week after [adjusts monocle] defeating Grambling by 31 in their only game of the week. Buffalo unfairly falls to #21 even though they picked up a road win against Syracuse on Tuesday before losing to Marquette. 13 voters completely yanked the Bulls out of their top 25 for losing a road game to a top 25 team that had a guy go nuclear in the second half. I guess we should be fair, as Mr. Wolf and Mr. Newell are two of the 14 that didn’t vote for Buffalo this week. Indiana are the final team on MU’s schedule in the top 25 this week, coming in at #23, one spot better than last week.

Kansas State still picked up 69 points in this iteration of the poll to lead the way on Marquette’s list of opponents in the Receiving Votes area. St. John’s is right behind them at 67 points, and the Big East is also represented by Villanova (44 points) and Seton Hall (5 points). Louisville earned four points to wrap up the notable names in the polling this week.

Marquette returns to action on Friday when they host Southern at Fiserv Forum. Tipoff is set for 7pm Central with the broadcast coming at you on FS1.

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