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Last Saturday, Marquette had one of their best games of the season, ripping through #12 Kansas State, 83-71.
The Associated Press voters were kind of impressed, but not very impressed.
After going from barely outside the poll to barely inside the poll to only one vote to no votes at all, MU’s win over the Wildcats wasn’t quite good enough to get them back into the AP top 25. The Golden Eagles earned 47 points on 14 ballots to end up as the unofficial #28 team in the country. Furman picked up 101 points to be #25 this week, while Purdue (100 points) and Syracuse (62 points) stand between MU and Furman.
That’s fine.
I can’t fault the wide majority of poll voters who said, “Y’know what? I don’t want to trust them yet. They’ve got two games in the next 20 days against teams that are in the top 25, so let’s see what happens there before I give Marquette the benefit of the doubt.” Can’t fault that viewpoint. Marquette’s votes this week are all scattered between #19 and #25, with three voters each putting MU in the final three spots in the rankings.
Kansas is the star of Marquette’s non-conference schedule so far, as KU stays steady at #2 in the country this week. Wisconsin inexplicably jumped 10 spots from last week to land at #12 in the new poll, while K-State went from #12 to #16 after Marquette beat them. Right behind KSU is Buffalo at #17, up four spots this week, and believe it or not, someone has them as the #8 team in the country. Villanova is the only Big East team in the top 25, coming in at #21 which is two spots better than last week.
There’s a lot of familiar names down in the Receiving Votes department with Marquette. Creighton got 42 points and have a Saturday date at #24 Nebraska on their slate, and St. John’s is right behind them with 39 points. Following getting clobbered by #3 Duke, Indiana snagged 13 points in the poll, while Louisville turned up with 11 points after beating #10 Michigan State.
Marquette returns to action on Tuesday night when they host UTEP at Fiserv Forum, and they’ll follow that up by hosting those #12 Badgers on Saturday afternoon. I kind of like the idea of establishing “The Curse of #12” at the Forum. Let’s do that.
You can check out the whole top 25 right here.