Bracketology Winners: Louisville rising, Michigan continuing dominance

Marquette Golden Eagles

After early-season losses to Indiana and Kansas, many sold their Marquette stock. But it seems that the team just needed a few tune-up games to start hitting their potential. During this past week, the Golden Eagles notched high-quality home wins over Charleston Southern and Kansas State. These victories also came just after securing a neutral-site win over Louisville during the prior week. During this three-game winning streak, Marquette has shown the ability to win both with their offense and their defense (something we could not say a year ago).

Marquette is currently holding opponents to just 66.1 points per game, a mark that ranks 69th in the nation. And this includes the fact that Marquette allowed Indiana to drop 96 on them. In terms of predictive metrics, Marquette’s adjusted defensive efficiency ranks at 46th nationally. Of course, it is still early to draw any major conclusions but Marquette’s defense is, at the very least, slightly improved compared to past years.

Offensively, the duo of Markus Howard (22.6 points) and Sam Hauser (15.0 points) are predictably leading the team. Two of the best snipers in the nation, they are combining to shoot 50-for-129 (38.8%) from beyond the arc to this point in the year. They are the two leading scorers on the team and it is reasonable to expect that their numbers might even increase over the course of the year. Howard, most notably, seemed to have hit his stride when he dropped 46 points on Kansas State.