Marquette Basketball: Golden Eagles heads to the NIT as a two seed

Marquette Basketball barely missed the 2018 NCAA tournament, but the Golden Eagles did grab a two seed in the National Invitation Tournament.

After falling short of an NCAA tournament at-large bid, two seed Marquette (19-13, 9-9) will host a first-round NIT game against the seven-seeded Harvard Crimson (18-13, 12-2). The game will reportedly be held at the on-campus Al McGuire Center. This will be MU’s first NIT appearance since 2005.

Check out the full NIT bracket here.

The Golden Eagles had a puncher’s chance of earning a tourney bid on Selection Sunday; Bart Torvik’s projection system listed MU as the fourth team out and gave MU a 45.1 percent chance of at least heading to Dayton for the First Four.

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However, the committee looked the other way, and handed the final at-large spots to Arizona State, St. Bonaventure, Syracuse, and UCLA. Somewhat surprisingly, Marquette did not even crack the committee’s ‘First Four Out’ list (Baylor, Notre Dame, St. Mary’s, USC).

The new RPI quadrants were all the rage across college basketball this year, and Marquette failed to make much of an impression in those metrics. The Golden Eagles finished 3-8 in Q1, 5-3 in Q2, 4-2 in Q3, and 7-0 in Q4. Those Q2 and Q4 numbers are nice, but there was not enough meat in MU’s top quadrant, and the Q3 losses vs. Georgia and at DePaul were death knells to the “didn’t beat anyone, but didn’t lose to anyone either” stance.

Marquette had plenty of opportunities to grab a signature win. The Golden Eagles let early season chances slip away against Purdue and Wichita State, and they could never get over the hump against Villanova or Xavier during conference play. After bowing out in the Big East tournament quarterfinals, Marquette could only watch as bid thieves grabbed automatic bids in the Mountain West and Atlantic 10, and fellow bubble squads boosted their resumes.

Still, while the disappointment will certainly linger, this result is not entirely surprising. Marquette was picked to finish seventh in the Big East before the season (which they did) and were headed for the NIT according to many prognosticators (which they are). The 2017-18 season played out as expected, even though this team seemed destined for more in mid-January.

The NIT is not the ideal landing spot, but it should be helpful for a relatively young team that continues to develop. Redshirt senior and second-leading scorer Andrew Rowsey will move on after the season, but the rest of the team is scheduled to return. A deep NIT run allows for more games against quality opponents in a tournament setting. It also provides valuable minutes for next year’s undisputed leaders Markus Howard and Sam Hauser, as well as other unfinished products like Sacar Anim, Jamal Cain, and Greg Elliott.

TCU is the obvious model for everyone in the NIT. Jamie Dixon led the Horned Frogs to the NIT title last season, and then built on that success and earned a six seed in this year’s NCAA tournament. With Howard and Hauser returning, further development from the above wings, and the addition of four-star recruit Joey Hauser and transfer Ed Morrow, a high seed in next year’s tourney is very much in play for the Golden Eagles.

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The NCAA tournament is the standard at Marquette, so the NIT is clearly not good enough. Steve Wojciechowski may find himself on a hotter seat next winter if the results don’t improve, but for now, all the Golden Eagles can do is win the games in front of them.