With three regular season games left to go, Marquette women’s basketball can finish anywhere between third in the Big East and tied for seventh. With the top five teams in the standings skipping the opening day tripleheader at the conference tournament, there’s an obvious advantage to being on that side of the line instead of sixth or lower. That’s still up in the air for the Golden Eagles heading into Sunday in the Philadelphia suburbs, but 40 good minutes of basketball can change a lot of that.
A Marquette win would automatically mean they can’t finish worse than sixth since it would break up the chance of tying Providence at 10-10. A win combined with a Seton Hall win over St. John’s on Sunday would cause a lot of issues in both directions, as it would lock MU into at least a tie for fourth in the league because of how things would sit with both St. John’s and Creighton after that. It would also mean MU couldn’t do better than a tie for third because of where the Pirates would sit as a result. I think, technically, a St. John’s win over the Pirates on Sunday is more helpful for Marquette, as that would create a thin wedge of a chance at getting to the #3 seed and thus definitely avoiding UConn in the conference tournament until the title game.
Meanwhile, Villanova’s fighting to hold off Seton Hall and hold onto second place, and the Wildcats almost assuredly would like to avoid a loss that could nudge them a little further down the at-large ladder regarding the NCAA tournament. ESPN.com has them as a Last Four Byes team as of Friday morning, meaning they’d avoid a play-in game scenario. MU doesn’t have a truly damaging profile if they come out of The Finn with a win, but it’s obviously better for VU’s chances if they get the W.
And so all of that rides on how exactly both teams come away from giving UConn fits in their most recent games. While both teams took losses to the Huskies last time out, both had to come away saying “gosh darn it, we were that close.” For Marquette, that’s a big deal, as the Golden Eagles had not looked close to playing a quality 40 straight minutes of basketball in a long while. If the mindset from last weekend against the Huskies makes it to the east coast on Sunday… well, it won’t put Marquette in the NCAA tournament discussion, but it sure beats a fourth straight loss, that’s for sure.
Big East Game #18: at Villanova Wildcats (21-6, 14-4 Big East)
Date: Sunday, February 22, 2026
Time: 2:30pm Central
Location: Finneran Pavilion, Villanova, Pennsylvania
Streaming: Peacock
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 20-17 all time against Villanova. The Golden Eagles have now won three of the last four games against the Wildcats after winning in Milwaukee earlier this season, but Nova has won seven of the last 10.
Villanova’s loss to Marquette back in early January busted up a long winning streak for the Wildcats, and it was, to a certain extent, the start of a rough patch for them. It ended up being the first of three losses in a six game span, although the middle loss was on the road against UConn. Explainable, maybe… except for that 49 point margin. After squeaking past Butler at home by eight points in their next game, Villanova fell behind quickly on the road against St. John’s before taking a 71-58 loss at Carnesecca Arena.
The Wildcats have gotten back on a heater, or rather had gotten back on one. Kicking Providence around the gym after the STJ loss started off a six game winning streak for the Wildcats, but they find themselves, like Marquette, coming in off a loss to UConn. Interestingly, the Wildcats also gave UConn a hell of a time, up to and including leading 40-37 at halftime. The Huskies asserted themselves immediately in the third quarter, but you could easily argue that Villanova comes into Sunday with even more frustration about not being able to hold it together against UConn than Marquette has.
The first meeting between these two teams was decided by way of Marquette’s three-point shooting. When you shoot 61% behind the arc on 18 attempts, it’s going to mess with the other team’s ability to do anything. With that said, the reason why Marquette won 85-69 is largely because of a 19-9 third quarter margin, but the Golden Eagles were just 1-for-3 behind the arc in that period. It was just old school getting your business taken care of by suffocating the Wildcats’ offense to just 4-for-12 shooting to stop their chances of wiping out the seven point halftime advantage Marquette enjoyed.
Villanova’s offense went through Jasmine Bascoe and Kennedy Henry in the first encounter, and Marquette held them to a combined 16-for-34 shooting night, including 3-for-11 from beyond the arc. 16-for-34 isn’t all that bad, but eight of the 18 misses coming from three-point land is a bit of a problem, at least from the VU point of view. Bascoe led the Wildcats with 20 points the first time around, but she put up 10 in the fourth quarter alone as Villanova managed to slash the lead as close as 10 points in the final frame at one point. Henry did somewhat of the same thing, scoring eight of her 15 in the final quarter. It’s not great news to look back and realize that MU gave up 24 points in the final 10 minutes of that game, especially given how things have gone since then, but at least the Golden Eagles were able to match Nova with 24 going the other way to even it out.
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