Marquette Men’s Lacrosse Slips Out Of The Top 20 Voting

On Saturday, Marquette men’s lacrosse suffered their third straight loss, their third straight loss to a ranked opponent, their second straight loss in overtime, and their fourth loss in the last five games. This has dropped the Golden Eagles to under .500 on the season at 6-7, and finally, it has affected whatever pro-MU minds are out there in the Inside Lacrosse top 20 voting.

Last week, even with two losses to ranked opponents, Marquette still earned votes in the top 20 poll. This week, not so much. The Golden Eagles are just 2-4 since beating then-#5 Penn State to start earning votes in the polling, and common sense about who is and is not deserving of being called a top 20 team has been restored. I’m not trying to be mean to head coach Andrew Stimmel or his players here, but at some point, you’re not the team that was able to be better than the Nittany Lions for 60 minutes, and the voters have to acknowledge that.

As always, there are a giant stack of Marquette opponents in the top 20. Notre Dame remains #1 in the country, earning all but one first place vote this week. Penn State stays steady at #5, and the same goes for Cornell at #6. Georgetown is up one place to #8 to stand as the best ranked team in the Big East, but Denver — steady at #10 — and Villanova — up two spots at #13 — aren’t that far behind them. Michigan gained a spot to move to #17 this week, as did Utah, the current #19 team in the country.

Marquette returns to action this Friday night, as they will close the regular season and potentially the entire 2023 season with a home game against #10 Denver. First draw is set for 6pm Central, and as I understand things, the game is scheduled to be played outdoors as MU prepares to host the conference tournament next week. If you can’t make it down, FloSports will have the streaming broadcast. As a fun side note: Friday night’s game will be the final regular season game for Denver head coach and college lacrosse legend Bill Tierney, as he will be retiring when the season is over.

You can check out the entire top 20 right here.