For the third straight game Marquette will take on a team ranked in the top 15. Tonight, the Golden Eagles host No. 1 Villanova.
Marquette gained a bit of confidence after earning a signature victory on the road at then-No. 7 Creighton.
“A team of that caliber, just going in and beating them at their house really just gives us a sense of confidence and we have to bring that into tomorrow,” guard Markus Howard said. “We weren’t surprised with the outcome of the game because that’s what we’ve worked for this entire season so we’ve just worked hard, so hard, and we’re going to continue to do that tomorrow.”
Not only is Villanova the No. 1 team in the country, but it’s been nearly five calendar years since Marquette has defeated the Wildcats. Their most recent contest was a dominant showing for Villanova that the Golden Eagles salvaged with a late flurry of buckets.
“We’ve played pretty well in all BIG EAST games except the Villanova game,” head coach Steve Wojciechowski said. “Certainly they had a hand in that. If you remember, they were coming off their first loss in a long time so they were really ready to play. Their intensity really knocked us back and we didn’t do the things that we had set out to do, really on either end. And again, they deserve a lot of credit for that. But I think our team can play a lot better at this point in the season.”
“We just didn’t compete hard,” Luke Fischer said. “They got whatever they wanted. I think we were scared.”
Marquette has the best offense in the BIG EAST during conference play per KenPom, but the worst defense. Villanova is second to Marquette in offense and they’re at the top of the conference in defense.
“They have a great combination of a terrific offense and a great defense,” Wojciechowski said. “With us, we have to take care of the basketball. In the last three games that we’ve played against them they’ve scored over 70 points off our turnovers and we can’t allow that. Defensively, we have to guard the ball a lot better than we’ve been doing against them they’ve really been able to drive us and put us in help situations.”
Villanova (19-1) is riding a five-game winning streak after suffering its first and only loss of the season to Butler Jan. 4. Josh Hart, a BIG EAST Player of the Year candidate, has scored in the double-digits in every game this season and is coming off a 25-point performance against Providence.
There’s plenty of reasons to be confident about Marquette’s play as of late, but there is no tougher game left on the Golden Eagles’ schedule than this one.
