With just six Big East regular season games left to go — and one of them a mostly scheduled loss to #1 UConn — it’s not too early to start thinking about what’s on the table for Marquette in terms of conference
tournament seeding.
At 10-4 in Big East action, Marquette can clinch a top seven finish in the Big East with a win on Sunday. Only the top five get to skip the first round tripleheader in the Big East tournament, so inching closer to that would be a good thing. Beating Creighton specifically on Sunday helps the Golden Eagles out in their quest to lock in a top five spot, as the Jays are currently alone in sixth place in the standings.
That’s how far down Marquette could still slip as the season goes along. The Golden Eagles are currently alone in third place in the Big East, a half game ahead of 9-4 Seton Hall. They’re also a full game behind 11-3 Villanova in second place, and with one of the remaining six contests coming on the road against the Wildcats, Marquette finds themselves still alive for the #2 seed in the league right now. That #2 spot is valuable, as it keeps you on the other side of the conference tourney bracket from UConn, thus making a pathway to the Big East title game more viable. #3 gets you there as well — 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3 is the setup for the semifinals, providing you can get that far — but it’s obviously more fun to win more games and get the better spot. It also gets you a (presumably) slightly more advantageous quarterfinal matchup.
And that brings us to whether or not Marquette is going to be chasing these things with or without Olivia Porter in the lineup. She gingerly walked off during the Georgetown game and then was seemingly not able to bend her knee due to a brace while not playing against Providence on Wednesday. It’s reasonable to ask how much of not playing against Providence was more risk management than anything else, especially with games against Seton Hall and Villanova coming up in the next couple of weeks. Seeing as Porter wasn’t issued crutches immediately in D.C. and that she wasn’t on them on Wednesday, I’m inclined to believe that we’ll see her play for Marquette again this season, the question is just when that happens. I’m guessing it won’t be on Sunday in Omaha.
We’re also going to have to guess if Skylar Forbes will keep coming off the bench for head coach Cara Consuegra. She’s been doing that since missing the road trip to Butler for personal reasons, which raises the question of exactly what that reason was. Forbes has played 28 minutes in each of the last two games, so it’s not like Consuegra is limiting her minutes. Wednesday’s game against Providence was definitely Forbes’ best game since the contest that she missed, and I would have said that before she hit two late threes to go from 16 points to a team high 22 at the final horn.
Big East Game #15: at Creighton Bluejays (11-12, 7-7 Big East)
Date: Sunday, February 8, 2026
Time: 12pm Central
Television: FS1, with Elise Woodward and Kim Adams calling the action
Streaming: FoxSports.com/live or the Fox Sports app
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Marquette is 15-19 all time against Creighton. MU’s home win earlier this season against the Bluejays snapped a stretch of two straight Creighton wins in the series, but the Bluejays have still won four of the last six against the Golden Eagles.
Things were not going well for Creighton when Marquette won 67-49 in Milwaukee back on January 8th. That was their fourth loss in five games, and it dropped the Jays to 3-4 in Big East play. Things kept going down from there, following up a 41 point home loss to UConn with a three point road loss at Providence. After crushing Xavier at home, Creighton created another problem for themselves with a 15 point road loss to last place DePaul. That had them at 4-7 in the Big East and really scuffling.
Since then, however, things have gotten better. Creighton has won three straight, crushing St. John’s by 30, squeaking past Seton Hall in South Orange by six, and escaping against Georgetown, 64-62, back on Wednesday. That is very much “escaping” as Creighton went up 10 very quickly, coughed up that entire lead and more, rebuilt a nine point lead, coughed that up, and found themselves down 62-60 with 1:40 to go. CU got a bucket from Grace Boffeli on the next possession, and a stop on GU’s end, but Brianna Byars swiped it away late in the ensuing possession. After a timeout, Georgetown had a chance to win, but Brianna Scott appeared to suffer a setback to her already braced knee as she drove into the middle of the lane and ultimately traveled. Timeout, inbound, Byars went to sleep on a fake handoff between Boffeli and Ava Zediker, and Boffeli went around Byars and used her to screen her defender off for the easiest “five seconds left in a tie game” layup you’ll ever see in your life.
Based on everything leading up to it, Creighton shouldn’t have gotten the chance to win there, honestly. Extra credit to Boffeli, because she ended up with the defense on Georgetown’s last second chance to win on the other end and she forced a short miss on a five footer.
Three wins in a row for the Bluejays has them alive in a conversation for the final bye in the first round of the Big East conference tournament at the end of the month, but they’re about to hit a rough patch. There’s this game, then at UConn, then home against Villanova. This isn’t necessarily a game that Creighton should win — BartTorvik.com favors Marquette by two — but it’s a game that they could win and with two tougher games coming up next, the Bluejays should be kind of fired up to even the season series.
The key to Marquette’s win last time out wasn’t tip to horn domination even with the margin at 67-49. It was mostly just one big run that included winning the third quarter 15-2. However, for the full game, Marquette limited Creighton to just 30% shooting and just 23% from long range as they attempted more than half their shots from behind the arc. I don’t know if Marquette can particularly count on Allison Heathcock and Kennedy Townsend combining to shoot 2-for-11 on threes again, but that’d be pretty neat, that’s for sure.
Marquette didn’t do anything particularly impressive on offense in that game, shooting just 50% overall and under 32% from three themselves, and the three-point shooting was bolstered by hitting three of five in the fourth quarter. That might be helpful for a slightly shorthanded Marquette if it comes to that, so if the Golden Eagles can play defense the way that Cara Consuegra wants them to go, say, specifically in the line of not coughing up most of big double digit leads like they have in their last two home games, that might be just enough to push them across the line to a sixth straight win, their longest in league play during Consuegra’s two seasons in charge in Milwaukee.
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