Xavier v. Marquette: Big East Tournament Preview

The season, they tell us, is a marathon, not a sprint. Having trained for, executed, and now completed that marathon, Xavier now has a sprint to save its campaign.

Out of the blocks, Xavier will first be tasked with running down Marquette. The Golden Eagles finished seventh in the league, part of a five-team morass with six or seven wins and looking up at DePaul. It’s an ugly fate, to be sure. They won the tiebreaker between themselves, Providence, and Butler by going 3-1 against those teams. Their prize is competing in this game at 6:30 on a Wednesday. Winner gets UConn, who went 3-1 against these teams in the regular season, compiling a gaudy +75 scoring margin along the way.

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Because the Big East is the best basketball-centric league in the country, these teams played each twice during the regular season. The game at Marquette played out the same way that all too many of Xavier’s games did this season: no-show out of the gates, somehow against all odds find a way back in, come up just short at the end. In this one, it took Xavier more than 10 minutes to even crack double digits scoring. They found themselves down 10 at halftime and 13 with 12 minutes to go. They responded with an 11-0 run to make it interesting and eventually clawed in front on a Malik Messina-Moore bucket with 2 to play. They then didn’t score again down the stretch and lost a heartbreaker by a single point.

At Cintas, it went the exact opposite way. Xavier ripped off an 18-3 run before the first media timeout and then answered back-to-back Marquette buckets with another 10-0 spurt to push the lead to 28-10. They led by as many as 21 in the first half before Marquette pulled it back to 16 at the break. In agonizing slow motion, a 30-19 opening to the second half brought the visitors to within 5, Xavier pushed it back out to 10, Marquette cut it back to 4 with two minutes to play, and Xavier eventually salted it away at the line. The win prob chart said it was never really in doubt, but…

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Publish date : 2026-03-11 12:12:00

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