With a 5-0 conference record, a No. 11 ranking in the AP Top 25 and an offense pumping out 81.6 points per game, the logical conclusion would be that the Marquette men's basketball team is playing as well as it can, right?

Not according to senior guard Jerel McNeal. "We've been a little bit up and down," McNeal said. "I still don't think we've peaked yet or we're playing as good as we're going to play.

"This past (Providence) game I felt like we played really bad all the way up until like the last eight minutes of the game."

Off to its best start since joining the Big East, the team's strong conference play shouldn't be taken lightly. But the Golden Eagles hope McNeal is right as they head into the meat of the conference schedule.

Providence, which started off the season 3-0 in conference play, was a formidable team, but the Golden Eagles' reliance on small-ball and ability to hit the 3-pointer enabled them to comeback.

The problem is that small-ball can yield unpredictable results, especially when players playing out of position get in foul trouble. Coach Buzz Williams knows this well but chooses to evaluate the situation differently.

"Tough guys win in the end," Williams said. "That's why I don't care what position (guys play) or how tall (they are); you can't measure a guy's heart."

That may be true, but besides being undersized, the Golden Eagles have been streaky from 3-point range. While they rank third in 3-point field goal percentage (37 percent) in the Big East, consistency has been an issue. The team went 9-for-20 from behind the arc against Providence, 5-for-17 against West Virginia, 2-for-13 against Rutgers and 15-for-25 against Cincinnati.

"Right now, we can't complain about much just because we're getting wins," McNeal said. "But at the same time we're still not playing as good as we can."

In addition to Providence, defeating West Virginia and Villanova were also solid wins for the Golden Eagles. But Notre Dame, Georgetown, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Louisville are all on a different level than any team Marquette has played this year.

And then there is DePaul, Marquette's Saturday opponent.

The Blue Demons (8-11, 0-6 Big East) sit dead last in the Big East standings and rank in the bottom four in virtually every major statistical category: scoring offense, scoring defense, field-goal percentage, field-goal percentage defense, 3-point field-goal percentage, 3-point field-goal percentage defense, rebounding defense, rebounding margin, assists, assist-to-turnover ratio, defensive rebounds and 3-point field goals made.

"We never go into any game looking at it like it's an easy task," Lazar Hayward said. "We know that they're a very good team and they're going to play hard . but with us it's just another game that we have to try to get a win."

DePaul might not look like much of a challenge, but sitting atop the Big East has its downfalls. The mark of a good team is its ability to win the games it should win, DePaul included. But every team, DePaul included, wants to be the team to knock off the leader.

"Whenever you go up in polls…the higher you go the more the other teams want to beat you," Hayward said. "It definitely puts a big target on your back.

"As long as we're playing together and we're attacking and playing as a team, which is what we've been doing, you never know what happens."