Marquette Keeps Moving Up In The Associated Press Poll

A 2-0 week for Shaka Smart and the Golden Eagles paid off for them in Monday’s brand new Associated Press top 25 poll. I don’t know how much is just voters giving them credit for the Baylor win finally or respecting the road victory against Notre Dame, but 12 voters put MU in their top 25s this week, and that moved MU from seven points a week ago to 39 points this week.

MU had just two voters putting them in the rankings last week, so that’s a big jump for the Golden Eagles. 39 points puts them in a three-way tie for the unofficial ranking as the #28 team in the country this week, along side Arizona State and Iowa State. Dylan Sinn is one of the voters who had Marquette in last week, and this week he leads the charge with the Golden Eagles at #17 in the country. That’s the only vote somewhere above the 20s, as MU got two votes at #21 and #24, three at #23 and #25, and just one from Jerry Carino at #22.

With Houston taking a loss to Alabama this past weekend, there were two teams on Marquette’s schedule that had a case to replace the Cougars as the #1 team in the country. Purdue is the team that got there, getting 27 first place votes. Connecticut was the other with a shot at it, and while 15 voters had the Huskies in the top spot, they are only the #3 team in the country right now.

Baylor is up one spot this week to #11 in the country. Mississippi Stat jumped up six spots in the new poll, landing at #17. Wisconsin jumps into the top 25 this week thanks to a win over then-#13 Maryland as the Badgers land at #22 for the time being.

Down in the receiving votes area, Xavier trails along behind Marquette at 26 points. Creighton is in there as well as three votes are just completely asleep at the wheel and handed over 11 points worth of votes to a team on a four game losing streak. FUN FACT: The Bluejays are down 35-29 to the aforementioned Arizona State team at halftime as I type this.

Marquette returns to action against that same Creighton team this coming Friday. It will be the Big East opener for both squads with tipoff scheduled for 7:30pm on FS1.

You can check out the entire top 25 right here.