Let’s Talk About Marquette Men’s Basketball And The Preseason Associated Press Poll

Hey, you know what we should do? Check in with the Associated Press’ preseason top 25 poll for men’s college basketball relative to the upcoming Marquette season.

It should not come to a surprise to anyone at all that Marquette is not only not ranked in the preseason AP poll, but they did not receive any votes. That allows us to keep it moving along to the teams that the Golden Eagles will see during the season that are in the poll.

During the non-conference slate, Marquette will play one team that is ranked in the preseason top 25 and two that landed in the Receiving Votes department. The ranked team is Baylor, who start off the year as the #5 team in the country. The two Receiving Votes teams are almost at the exact opposite ends of the non-conference schedule. Purdue will be MU’s third opponent of the season, and they are the unofficial #29 team in the country to start the year. Marquette’s final non-conference game of the season will be a road trip to visit Notre Dame on December 11th. The Irish are technically receiving votes in the preseason poll, as their one 25th place vote from Dick Vitale has them in a tie for the unofficial #40 team in the country.

Over in Big East play, there are two ranked teams, both in the top 20, and two teams receiving votes. Creighton is starting the year with their highest ever preseason poll position at #9. Villanova, fresh off of the retirement of legendary head coach Jay Wright, will start the year at #16.

The two teams receiving votes but falling outside the top 25 are UConn and Xavier. The Huskies snagged 101 points while appearing on 24 ballots to end up as the unofficial #27 team in the country. The Musketeers are the unofficial #33 team in the country to start things off after appearing on eight ballots and being ranked as high as #20 by Jon Rothstein.

Marquette starts off the season against Radford on Monday, November 7th. A brief reminder about that game: It is going to be part of FS1’s whiparound coverage, so you’re going to want to make sure you’re set to go to watch the whole game on the Fox Sports app.

You can check out the entire top 25 right here.