• Marquette Opens Big East Home Slate vs Xavier

    By: Steve Luebke
    Special to BrewCityBall.com

    Marquette leads the all time series 49-24. Xavier won both games last year and is 9-3vs. Marquette since joining the Big East in 2012-13 season. Xavier has won its last 7 Big East road games.

    Xavier 9-6/1-1

    Ken Pom
    O efficiency 110.2 (47)
    Defficiency 100.8 (123)

    Marquette 11-3/0-1

    Ken Pom
    O efficiency 119.9(31)
    Defficiency 96.6 (54)

    Xavier is under the leadership of first year coach TravisSteele. Steele has been on the coachingstaff at Xavier for the prior 10 years. He previously worked on the staff at Indiana under Kelvin Sampson. Here are Coach Steele’s thoughts on the matchup.

    OPPORTUNITY… Xavier has allowed 133 3-pointers this season,most in the Big East. Xavier is 9thin the Big East averaging 13.9 turnovers per game while Marquette is worst inBig East averaging 14.6 turnovers per game. Further, Xavier is 9th in Big East with a assist to turnoverratio of 1.06 while Marquette is 10th with an assist to turnoverratio of 1.0.

    HITTING THE BOARDS… Marquette leads the Big East seasonstatistics with a +8.4 rebounding margin.

    BALANCE SCORING… Xavier has 5 players averaging double digitsin scoring lead by #3 Quentin Goodin with 13.5 ppg. Goodin also leads the Musketeers in assistswith 74. Graduate transfer #34 ZachHankins is the 2018 NCAA Division 2 Player of the Year. Hankins led Ferris State to the D2 NationalChampionship. He averages 10.2 ppg whileshooting 72.4% from the floor.

    CHARITY STRIPE SUCCESS… Marquette leads the Big East shooting 75% from the free throw line thanks to Markus Howard (91.2%), Joey Hauser(85%), and Sam Hauser (84.8%) The restof the team is 57.5% from the line.

    WAY TO EARLY BUT THIS IS A MUST WIN FOR MU… Marquette willtravel to Creighton this week and host a hot Seton Hall team next Saturday atFiserv Forum and cannot afford to start Big East play with an extended losingstreak. The Golden Eagles had a greatnon-conference performance that would be all but lost.

    This should be a win for Marquette. Early games can be a challenge. Marquette will have to play the type ofdefense the exhibited in December. Wouldlike to start seeing more consistency from MU players whose last name doesn’tstart with H. Marquette 74 Xavier 65.