Marquette Basketball: Golden Eagles losing momentum after win over Nova

Marquette basketball snagged a victory over the Villanova Wildcats last Tuesday, but has dropped two straight against Providence and St. John’s since.

After knocking off two straight top 10 teams, Creighton and Villanova, the Marquette Golden Eagles were thought to be headed for an appearance in the Big Dance for the first time in the Steve Wojciechowski as long as they didn’t record multiple bad losses.

Well in a matter of a week, the Golden Eagles are trending downwards.

Not only did they drop a home game at the Bradley Center to the Providence Friars (the first time the Friars have won in Milwaukee…ever), but they also lost a road game at Madison Square Garden to the St. John’s Red Storm.

Those are not only two losses, but they are two blemishes on their resume. The Friars are in the midst of a down year (even though they are still competitive under Ed Cooley) and Chris Mullin’s team is in a rebuilding process (even though they have made significant process in year two).

More from Busting Brackets

The Golden Eagles still have a favorable record at 14-8 overall and 5-5 in the Big East, but they’ll likely need at least nine wins in conference. And it won’t be easy to get there with match-ups against Xavier (twice), Creighton, Georgetown (on the road) and Butler.

Beyond their victories over Villanova, Creighton and Seton Hall, Marquette’s best win comes against either Vanderbilt or Georgia. That’s not promising.

And even worse, the Golden Eagles played poorly against the Red Storm. They shot 41 percent from three and looked crisp at times offensively, but they also turned the ball over 17 times (something that was a major issue last season) and played very little defense.

They let St. John’s shoot 49 percent from the field and 42 percent from the three point line, and were coughing up the ball left and right against St. John’s ball pressure.

Andrew Rowsey’s performance was promising but Katin Reinhardt shot 1-of-7 and Jajuan Johnson and Luke Fischer combined to score just 16 points.

Next: Top 25 features upsets galore

If Marquette is going to reach the NCAA Tournament, they will need to find a way to score beyond just shooting the three and will certainly need to cut down on their points given up. If not, their wins over Villanova and Creighton will prove to be an outlier.

Home/Big East