Marquette Men’s Basketball Holds Steady At #6 In The AP Poll

New week, new Monday, new Associated Press men’s college basketball top 25 rankings, and the penultimate rankings of the season if I’m not mistaken. In any case, it’s important to note that Marquette is ranked yet once again for the ninth consecutive week and the 10th time this season, but there’s nothing new to report on their ranking.

Same as last week, the Golden Eagles are the #6 team in the country. It is the first time that Marquette has had a single digit ranking in the AP poll in consecutive weeks since the last poll of February and the first poll of March in 2012, and it is the first time that MU has been north of #8 in the polls for consecutive weeks since the last poll of February and the first one of March in 1978.

Marquette earned 1,218 points worth of votes this week, and that’s an improvement on their 1,173 last week, so you can easily say that they solidified their standing as a top 10 team. Purdue also held steady in the poll to stay one spot ahead of Marquette with 1,274 points this week, while Texas gathered up 1,100 points to move up to spots to stand one spot behind MU at #7.

Last week, Marquette had a bunch of people voting them at #5 to lead the way in carrying the banner for the Golden Eagles on a national scale. That has changed this week, as Bret Bloomquist, C.L. Brown, and Pat Rooney have all installed Marquette as the #3 team in the country on their ballots. I know, hold on to your pants kind of stuff there. MU snagged five votes at #4 and nine at #5. The heavy plurality of voters have Marquette at #6 in the country, which does sound an awful lot like “well, that’s where they were last week, so sure” but I’m not going to complain about it. Marquette got at least four votes each at #7 through #9, and then there’s David Jones bringing up the rear with MU at #11. I’m not going to bang on him too hard here because he did have the Golden Eagles at #12 last week, so he’s moving on up.

We already mentioned Purdue, and yes, they remain the top ranked team on Marquette’s schedule. Baylor has fallen three spots to #10 this week, while UConn has risen three spots to sit one place behind the Bears. Xavier gained some ground this week, going from #19 to #15, while Creighton dropped from #17 to #24 to round out the ranked foes discussion.

Providence fell out of the top 25 after sitting at #20 last week and losing two home games including an absolute and total no-show against Seton Hall in the regular season finale, but they did still get 10 people to vote for them and end up as the unofficial #29 team in the country. They’re also the only team that MU saw this season that’s in the Receiving Votes area this week.

Marquette returns to action on Thursday, March 9th, when they play in the Big East conference tournament quarterfinals as the #1 seed in the bracket. Their game will be at 11am Central and FS1 will have the broadcast. We don’t know the opponent yet, as that will be decided on Wednesday in the 8/9 game between St. John’s and Butler.

You can check out the entire top 25 right here, and see how everyone voted for Marquette right here.