Marquette Men’s Soccer Picked Fourth In Big East Midwest Division

We’re a day away from the start of the 2021 spring season for NCAA men’s soccer. Yesterday, Monday if you will, the Big East announced the results of the preseason poll of the coaches in the league. In the divisional format that was originally announced back last summer, Marquette will be playing in the Midwest Division. Within that five team side of the aisle, the Golden Eagles are picked to finish fourth this season. After going 8-9-1 overall and 4-5-0 in Big East play in the 2019 season, that’s not particularly surprising.

Marquette earned seven points in the polling. Butler was picked to win the division, earning 15 points and three of the five first place votes. The other two went to Creighton, who earned 14 points to land in the #2 spot in the preseason rankings. Xavier came in one spot ahead of Marquette with 10 points, while DePaul finished in fifth and last place by only earning four points. That indicates that the Blue Demons only earned four last place votes, as coaches couldn’t vote for their own teams.

This would normally be the part of the show where we talk about the player or players on the Marquette roster that were named to the preseason all-Big East team..... but we have to veer away from that here. It’s for the obvious reason: Marquette does not have anyone on the preseason all-Big East team. The team is a combination of players from both divisions, but only five teams — Butler, Creighton, Georgetown, Providence, and St. John’s — have representatives on the 12 man team, and that’s even with a tie in the voting at goalkeeper.

This is the kind of thing that happens when the defending national champions — in this case the Georgetown — are in your conference, I suppose. The Hoyas have five of the 12 spots occupied, and Creighton is the only team of the five that did not qualify for the NCAA tournament back in the fall of 2019.

As you’d expect, the Hoyas are the favorite over in the East Division. They snagged all five first place votes available to them — there’s six teams in that division — to end up with 25 points and comfortably land in front of Providence and their 20 points. St. John’s is third at 17, Connecticut is fourth at 13, Seton Hall fifth at 8, and Villanova bringing up the rear with 7 points.

We’ll close out with the rundown of the individual awards for the start of the season as well as the list of the preseason all-conference team. Marquette begins play on Wednesday night when they play host to Loyola Chicago. First kick is set for 6pm, and streaming will be available on GoMarquette.com.

You can check out the Big East’s entire press release on the preseason honors right here.

Preseason Offensive Player of the Year

Tani Oluwaseyi, St. John’s, Jr., F

Preseason Defensive Player of the Year

Rio Hope-Gund, Georgetown, Sr., D

Preseason Co-Goalkeepers of the Year

Paul Kruse, Creighton, Jr., GK
Giannis Nikopolidis, Georgetown, Jr., GK

Men’s Soccer Preseason All-Big East

Wilmer Cabrera Jr., Butler, So., F
Derek Dodson, Georgetown, Sr., F
Tani Oluwaseyi, St. John’s, Jr., F
Einar Lye, St. John’s, Jr., M
Paulo Lima, Providence, Jr., M
Jacob Montes, Georgetown, Sr., M
Sean Zawadzki, Georgetown, Jr., M
Rio Hope-Gund, Georgetown, Sr., D
Rhys Myers, Butler, D
Brandon Knapp, St. John’s, Jr. M/D
Paul Kruse, Creighton, Jr., GK
Giannis Nikopolidis, Georgetown, Jr., GK