Marquette Men’s Basketball Big East Preview Primer: vs Xavier

Marquette Golden Eagles (5-10, 0-4 Big East) vs Xavier Musketeers (9-6, 1-3 Big East)

Date: Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Marquette Stats Leaders

Points: Chase Ross, 16.3 ppg
Rebounds: Ben Gold, 6.8 rpg
Assists: Sean Jones, 3.9 apg

Marquette Injury Note:Sean Jones missed Sunday’s game at Connecticut with a foot issue. It’s currently unclear if he’s available for Wednesday night, but generally speaking, foot injuries don’t heal that quickly.

Xavier Stats Leaders

Points: Tre Carroll, 16.1 ppg
Rebounds: Filip Borovicanin, 7.9 rpg
Assists: Filip Borovicanin, 4.2 apg

KenPom.com Rankings

Marquette: #118, their lowest ranking since going into a home game against Butler at #120 on January 30, 2016, in Steve Wojciechowski’s second season in charge
Xavier: #106
Game Projection: Marquette has a 58% chance of victory, with a predicted score of 79-77.

This Season So Far: Things have gone from not good to good to back to not good for the Musketeers.

The Richard Pitino Era began with a 66-62 home win over Marist in which Xavier hung a 31-5 run on the Red Foxes….. and found themselves trailing 60-59 with three minutes to play. Next up: Gutting out a 74-69 win over Le Moyne where they were up just three with less than three minutes left. Then a home loss to Santa Clara, and an 19 point road loss to Iowa, then rallying from down 55-41 to lead Georgia in Charleston with under a minute to go and giving up a three to lose with 11 seconds left.

And then things turned. A win over West Virginia in the consolation game of the Charleston Classic, then beating Cincinnati in the Crosstown Shootout helped build a five game winning streak, and the X-Men were 8-3 heading into Big East play.

And then things turned. Creighton hung a 36-5 run on them in Cintas Center on the way to winning by 41, then they barely escaped Washington with a 79-77 win over Georgetown that got Ed Cooley suspended for throwing a water bottle into the stands, then a loss at home to UConn, which, y’know, really isn’t that bad, although the 23 point margin probably wasn’t fun. That’s not the low point yet.

The low point was losing 86-77 at DePaul this past Saturday. No big run in that one, just a close basketball game where the Blue Demons pulled away late to win. They got out-gangstered by DePaul. Think about it.

Tempo Free Fun: Throw the analytics out on this one. We’re going full 100% Here’s What This Means For Marquette in this space.

As mentioned above, KenPom.com favors Marquette, just slightly, to win this game, maybe mostly because it’s in Milwaukee. Marquette is not favored again until they host DePaul on March 1st. That game is the only other time this season Marquette is favored. There’s only one other game this season — home against Providence — where KenPom has Marquette coming within one possession of winning. BartTorvik.com shows the same situations in terms of who is favored and by how many.

If Marquette does not snap their six game losing streak on Wednesday night against a Xavier team that has “doesn’t commit turnovers” as the only thing really going for them, I do not know when or even if Marquette will win again the rest of the season. KP and Torvik both believe there are multiple wins ahead for the Golden Eagles: 5-15 in the league for KenPom, 4-16 for Torvik.

But if you can’t beat a team that DePaul already beat, who can you beat?

Either the Golden Eagles figure this one out, or they end up with the longest losing streak in the last 35 years, and I don’t know when they get a chance to snap the downward spiral.

Marquette Last 10 Games: 2-8 with losses in each of their last six games. That is MU’s longest losing streak since a pair of six game losing streaks in Steve Wojciechowski’s first season in charge led to a 1-12 stretch in Big East play before wrapping up with a home win over DePaul. Marquette hasn’t lost seven straight since a stretch across New Year’s Day in 1990 and 1991, which was Kevin O’Neill’s second year in charge.

Xavier Last 10 Games: 6-4, with losses in their last two games and three of the last four.

All Time Series: Marquette leads, 61-28.

Current Streak: Marquette has the edge after winning 89-87 in the Big East tournament quarterfinals last season. That means the Golden Eagles have won six of the last seven in the series.

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