Marquette Men’s Lacrosse Picked To Finish Fifth In The Big East

The second season of Andrew Stimmel’s tenure as Marquette men’s lacrosse coach gets underway soon (although not as soon as you thought with Saturday’s game against Cleveland State getting canceled), so that means it’s time for a preseason poll in the Big East.

The league’s coaches put their heads together and picked Denver as the preseason favorite in the conference. All five non-Tierney coaches in the conference voted for the Pios, making them the unanimous favorite. Georgetown snagged the DU first place vote and landed in second place with 21 points.

Villanova are third at 17 points, followed by Providence in fourth with 13 points. That finally brings us round to YOUR Golden Eagles, who are fifth with nine points. St. John’s is last with all five last place votes that they could possibly get and just five points.

It’s hard to make any statements about how these teams stack up against each other, as the 2020 season was cancelled before Big East play got started. However, everyone who wanted to come back for an extra season was afforded that ability by the NCAA, which is why seven of of the 14 men on the preseason all-conference team are listed as Graduate Students this season.

None of those 14 men are going to be wearing Marquette blue and gold this season.

In fact, Marquette is the only team in the six team Big East to not put someone on the preseason all-conference team. Denver and Georgetown both got five spots, Villanova got two, and Providence and last place St. John’s each have one player on the list. I don’t know if Coach Stimmel and his staff are going to be wallpapering the locker room in the AHPRC with this information, but that is the kind of thing that you would wallpaper a locker room with if you were so inclined.

With Saturday’s game against Cleveland State off because of COVID issues in the Vikings’ program, Marquette will now open their season on Saturday, February 20th against [drumroll] Big East preseason favorite Denver! The Pioneers are #5 in the Inside Lacrosse preseason top 20 poll and are already 1-2 on the season with a narrow win over Utah, a two goal loss at #1 Duke, and a hilarious 11 goal shelling at the hands of #4 North Carolina. The Pios will face Air Force this Saturday before making the trip to Milwaukee. This will be the first of two meetings this season between Marquette and Denver, as the Big East has scheduled teams to play a double-round robin.

Here’s the rundown on the individual and team awards from the league.

Preseason Big East Offensive Player of the Year

Jake Carraway, Georgetown, Grad., A

Preseason Big East Defensive Player of the Year

Gibson Smith, Georgetown, Sr., D

Preseason All-Big East

Owen McElroy, Georgetown, Sr., GK
Ethan Walker, Denver, Grad., A
Jackson Morrill, Denver, Grad., A
Jake Carraway, Georgetown, Grad., A
Jack Hannah, Denver, Sr., M
Tim Hinrichs, Providence, Grad., M
Mike Madsen, St. John’s, Grad., M
Matt Campbell, Villanova, Jr., M
Colin Squires, Denver, Grad, D
Gibson Smith, Georgetown, Sr., D
Patrick Kennedy, Villanova, RS-Sr., D
Danny Logan, Denver, Grad., SSDM
Alex Mazzone, Georgetown, Jr., LSM
James Reilly, Georgetown, Jr., FOS