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Shoutout to Ben Steele of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for his news bits hustle this week. Not only did he nail down a date and time on Marquette Golden Eagles men’s basketball’s exhibition game AND news that Tommy Gardiner is now on scholarship AND news that Michael Kennedy from Homestead High School is now on the MBB roster as a walk-on, but he also tracked down the opponent for MU’s yearly closed door super top secret preseason scrimmage.
It’s Indiana. It’s Indiana.
Marquette's closed-door scrimmage this season will be Oct. 20 vs. Indiana. #mubb had played Northwestern the last two seasons. Location of #iubb scrimmage TBA, though it won't be in Milwaukee.
— Ben Steele (@BenSteeleMJS) August 26, 2019
For the third year in a row, Marquette will play a Big Ten team in their yearly “it’s a secret, don’t tell anybody, but actually we’ll tell everyone, you just can’t come watch it, and then we’ll vaguely tell Jeff Goodman about what happened afterwards” scrimmage. It was Northwestern each of the past two seasons, so the Golden Eagles will be traveling a little further afield for this one.
You might remember the Hoosiers from the 96-73 sandblasting that they handed Marquette near the beginning of the 2018-19 season. That was not fun. The Hoosiers ultimately missed the NCAA tournament, albeit just barely. They were a #1 seed in the NIT, but went out in the third round at the hands of Wichita State.
The Indiana team that faces Marquette in this secret scrimmage will likely be a wildly different Hoosiers team than the one MU saw in Bloomington last November. Romeo Langford was the #14 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, while Juwan Morgan finished up his collegiate career and earned an Exhibit 10 contract with the Utah Jazz. That’s both of their double digit scorers out the door for a combined loss of 32 points, 13.6 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game. IU head coach Archie Miller is going to have some work to do to figure out how to replace all of that production, but it’s not like Marquette is without their own major questions. With the Hauser brothers off to Virginia and Michigan State by way of transfer, MU head coach Steve Wojciechowski will be working on replacing 24.6 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 4.8 assists per game.
The closed door session with Indiana will take place on October 20th, nine days before the public exhibition game against St. Norbert’s College at Fiserv Forum. MU officially opens the season against Loyola-Maryland on Tuesday, November 5th.