Marquette Basketball: Takeaways from Golden Eagles so far in 2020-21 season

Outlook For The Rest Of The Season

Before diving into what the rest of the season could look like, Marquette added to a solid 2021 recruiting class during this season. Securing three four-star commits, ESPN’s 70th ranked Jonas Aidoo is the nation’s 15th best center, choosing Marquette over Kansas, Virginia Tech, Miami, South Carolina, and others. 92nd ranked nationally is point guard Stevie Mitchell chose Marquette over Stanford and Villanova. Rounding out the last recruit so far is combo guard Kameron Jones who chose Marquette over Florida, Wake Forest, Arkansas, and NC State.

Now, where could this Marquette team be the rest of the way? Your guess is as good as mine considering how unpredictable this team is. Marquette is a dangerous team that can compete with anybody, but they’re also a confusing team where it’s almost never a safe bet with how they’ll play in an upcoming game. There were more questions going into this Marquette season than most, but I don’t think many Marquette fans expected the highs and lows to be this extreme so far.

I have confidence (with caution) this can be the year Marquette finally does damage in the tournament in the Wojo era. Right now at 5-5 though, Marquette’s exceedingly challenging schedule has them right around the bubble. While the what-if game is frustrating, if the endings of the heartbreaking losses to Seton Hall and Xavier go differently Marquette could be 7-3 right now. With that being said, Marquette will continue to have positive outcomes in close games as well.

After playing four of the top 5 teams in the Big East standings to open conference play, the next couple of games don’t get any easier. While the next game at Georgetown is one of the easier opponents they’ve played in a while, Marquette plays at home UConn (currently an 11 seed in ESPN’s bracketology) and on the road at currently ranked #4 Villanova (a 1 seed in the same bracketology). It’s very realistic Marquette can be a dreadful 6-7 before their schedule eases up to what is most likely their easiest 6-game stretch of the season.

Marquette has seen some very good teams underachieve in the Wojo era, but a big part of me feels like this Marquette team is too talented to underachieve (I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m wrong however). The floor is around preseason expectations, which is a high ranked NIT team. I don’t want to jinx a high ceiling but as it’s been implied by now, this team has a very high level of potential (and for what it’s worth, Steve Lavin has said multiple times he can see Marquette getting multiple wins in March).

I see Marquette being more consistent than they are right now, but not consistent enough to avoid a couple bad losses in conference play like in years past (on the other hand I’m not discounting some huge wins!).

Therefore, my broad prediction will be that Marquette finishes in the 7-11 seed range in the NCAA tournament and we’ll have a better idea of how they’ll play in March based on their recent results at that time. With 16 more Big East games and more than 2 months left in the season, I’ll end with one message in the language of Marquette legend Al McGuire: Seashells and Balloons Marquette fans.