Marquette/St. John’s To Tip Off At 1pm Central

Over the past few years, Fox Sports has taken to letting the majority of the Big East men’s basketball schedule play itself out before they make a determination on what game starts when and on what network for the regular season finale. It’s actually a pretty smart move: While the matchups are set in stone, you give yourself some wiggle room to put the games that have the most at stake — and thus the most casual interest — on in what you consider to be your best broadcast windows.

The point is that we haven’t had a start time for Marquette’s regular season home finale against St. John’s all season long. That changed on Tuesday night when the official MU Twitter account let the news out approximately 35 minutes after the #10 ranked Golden Eagles wrapped up their road win over #19 Creighton.

It’s official now: Tipoff against the Red Storm on Saturday, March 4th, is set for 1pm Central time, and Fox — that’s big fancy broadcast Fox — will carry the game.

After defeating the Bluejays on Tuesday night to move to 22-6 overall and 14-3 in Big East play, Marquette’s magic number to secure at least a share of the Big East regular season championship stands at 2. That’s any combination of Marquette wins and Providence losses equaling up to two to guarantee at least a shared title. With Marquette set to play two games between now and the St. John’s contest, it’s not unreasonable to think that the yearly traditional Al’s Night will also serve as a coronation for the Golden Eagles in Year Two of Shaka Smart’s tenure as head coach.

It is also possible that Marquette could be playing to secure status as sole champion in the Big East in the game against the Johnnies. If Providence keeps winning between now and then and Marquette wins their two games in that same time frame, MU will clinch a share of the title and will be rightfully called Big East champs at that point... but if that happens, a win over St. John’s would eliminate Providence’s chances of ending up in a tie with the Golden Eagles.

I’m saying you should buy tickets if you haven’t already.

A quick glance at GoMarquette.com’s ticket site for the game at just a little bit before 2pm Central on Wednesday shows just 338 seats at Fiserv Forum still available. Your Get In The Door price is $32.