Xavier @ Marquette preview
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Last Meeting ( Dec 20, 2020 ) Marquette 88, Xavier 91
Xavier has dropped three consecutive road games and badly needs to halt that trend when it travels to face Marquette in Big East play on Saturday night in Milwaukee.
The Musketeers (13-6, 6-6 Big East) are teetering on the bubble in their quest for an NCAA Tournament bid, and the trio of losses to teams with .500 or less records is definitely a major blow to the resume.
So a road victory over a Marquette squad playing at home for the first time since Feb. 6 would qualify as a major boost. It would also allow Xavier to clinch a first-round bye in next week's Big East tournament in New York.
Plus, finishing above .500 in conference play sure beats finishing under.
"Our guys know," Musketeers coach Travis Steele said at Thursday's press conference. "But I want to make sure they understand it's not about the Big East tournament, it's not about the NCAA Tournament, it's about Marquette.
"That's the only thing I care about. That's the only thing that is on my mind."
The Golden Eagles (12-13, 7-11) have won three of their past four contests, including an impressive 83-70 road win over North Carolina on Feb. 24.
Marquette finished a stretch of six straight road games with a 3-3 mark after it defeated DePaul 77-71 on Tuesday.
"It's unheard of for a high-major team to have six road games in a row," Golden Eagles coach Steve Wojciechowski said afterward. "It's literally been a month where we've been on a road. Our guys have handled that pretty darn well, all things considered, with some of the adversity that we've gone through."
D.J. Carton scored 17 of his 20 points in the second half against the Blue Demons, while Dawson Garcia scored 12 points.
The second half outburst was big for Carton, who missed all nine of his field-goal attempts while scoring just two points in an 80-62 road loss to Connecticut on Feb. 27.
"I've been struggling recently scoring the ball," Carton said. "I played real patiently and took what the game gave me."
Garcia leads Marquette in scoring (13.2 points per game) and rebounding (6.6), while Carton averages 12.7 points and a team-leading 3.4 assists.
Xavier posted a 91-88 home victory over the Golden Eagles on Dec. 20 to end a four-game losing streak in the series. Paul Scruggs scored a season-high 29 points and matched his career best of five 3-pointers.
Scruggs averages a team-best 5.9 assists and ranks second in scoring (13.9) but had just five points in Tuesday's 72-66 road loss against Georgetown. Zach Freemantle, who has team-leading averages of 16.7 points and 9.2 rebounds, was just 4-of-15 shooting while recording 12 points and 12 rebounds.
That setback was Xavier's fourth in the past six games, and Steele says he knows the reason for the shaky performances.
"In order to give ourselves a chance to win, we have to put together 40 minutes," Steele said. "You can't play 20 minutes of the game and expect to win many Big East games. It's less about our opponent and more about us."
--Field Level Media