Marquette Golden Eagles (7-13, 2-7 Big East) at Butler Bulldogs (12-7, 3-5 Big East)
Date: Friday, January 23, 2026
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, Indiana
Marquette Stats Leaders
Points: Chase Ross, 15.7 ppg
Rebounds: Ben Gold, 5.9 rpg
Assists: Nigel James, 4.4 apg
Marquette Injury Note: Sean Jones has missed the last six games with a foot issue. He was out of his walking boot during the Providence game on Monday, so he’s moving closer towards a return but was still listed as Out on the availability report before the game. With eight games played already this season, but just
12 games left to go, I presume that he will play again if the doctors clear him before the season ends.
Butler Stats Leaders
Points: Finley Bizjack, 16.9 ppg
Rebounds: Michael Ajayi, 11.6 rpg, best in the Big East
Assists: Michael Ajayi, 3.2 apg
Butler Stats Note: Michael Ajayi, a 6’7”, 235 pound forward, is just six-tenths of a point behind Finley Bizjack for the team lead in points, too.
KenPom.com Rankings
Marquette: #122, their lowest ranking since going into the 2014-2015 regular season finale at #124.
Butler: #58
Game Projection: Butler has an 82% chance of victory with a predicted score of 85-75.
This Season So Far: We can split this Butler season into two parts. The first is before Jalen Jackson suffered a season ending ankle injury, and the second is after that injury.
Before Jackson was hurt, he was chipping in 9.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 1.3 steals per game while shooting 51% from the field and 40% from three-point range. Butler put together a record of 5-1 with only a narrow loss at SMU where the Mustangs essentially beat them at the buzzer denting their season. They even had neutral court wins over South Carolina and Virginia, the latter of which keeps looking better and better as the season goes along.
All of this raised Butler from a preseason KenPom.com rank of #72 up to #46 heading into their first game without Jackson. According to BartTorvik.com’s data filtering, Butler was playing like the #23 team in the country through their first six games of the season.
Without Jackson, Butler is 7-6, and they have started off Big East play at 3-5, although I’m willing to give them a little bit of credit here as their early league schedule was stacked against them. At UConn, at Creighton, then Villanova and St. John’s at home all in a row is a bad time. Butler’s KenPom ranking has been drifting downwards, falling as far as #64 before they beat Seton Hall at The Rock, but dropping from #56 before their win over DePaul on Tuesday to #58 on Thursday morning as I write this. According to BartTorvik.com’s data filtering, Butler has been playing like the #73 team in the country since Jackson went out of the lineup.
It’s a bit of a drop. They’re not bad, they’re just not the same team that beat Virginia or the team that seemed to be proving to be better than preseason expectations.
Tempo Free Fun: We have to compare what Butler has been without Jalen Jackson to what Marquette has been to this point of the season. It’s a bit weird, obviously, but there’s nothing of value from the Bulldogs’ first six games if they’re so much further down the rankings without him.
Butler is better on the offensive end than they are on the defensive end, but honestly, I’m not really sure how that’s the case. They’re not shooting the ball very well, they don’t rebound the ball very well on the offensive end. In fact, they’re straight up bad shooting the ball, connecting on just 31.6% of their three-pointers in the last 13 games and just 30.4% in Big East play. Head coach Thad Matta seems to be aware off this problem, and they’re not three-point dependent in terms of where they’re getting their shots. In fact, it would largely seem like Butler’s shooting woes stem from Finley Bizjack disappearing into the earth. He’s connecting on over 35% of his triples on a team high 6.8 attempts per game for the season…. but that’s just 30.8% on basically the same number of attempts in Big East action. Unsurprisingly, Bizjack is 7-for-13 in BU’s last two games, and hey, look at that: They won both.
In terms of shooting it, Marquette is going to need to watch it when Evan Haywood steps on the floor. The 6’4” sophomore hasn’t started a game this year and he averages less than 19 minutes a night. However, he finds time to shoot five threes per game, barely ever shooting twos at all, and he hits nearly 39% of them. Haywood is up over 22 minutes a night in Big East play, but he’s down to shooting just 33%. He hit 3-of-5 against DePaul to snap a run of eight straight misses across BU’s previous two games, and in general, he does appear to be a bit of a run hot/run cold type of shooter.
Butler’s defensive woes may slightly stem from the fact that they don’t force very many turnovers. Letting teams get shots up regularly is generally a problem in terms of getting stops, or so I’ve heard. The Bulldogs do have an interesting combination of things on defense that is somehow not really working out for them. They’re pretty good at forcing you off the three-point line, posting Torvik’s #65 defensive three-point attempt rate. They’re also elite at not allowing free throw attempts, coming in at #6 in the country at defensive free throw attempt rate. The Bulldogs are doing a heck of a job forcing the ball inside, but they’re also not fouling you. They’re not awful at two-point shooting defense either, so it’s not like they’re giving up free trips to the rim.
One non-Butler thing I want to point out, and I’m sorry about saying this but it’s true: “Nigel James gets 30” is not a game plan. Marquette needed a 38/3/8 and two steals from the 72 inch freshman to barely squeak together a one point overtime victory over Providence at home on Monday. James is not going to do that again, or at the very least, he is not going to do that every single night. In fact, Marquette isn’t going to be able to squeeze together much better offensive performances than that as a team, since the Golden Eagles put up 1.29 points per possession in that game, and that was MU’s second best offensive output of the season. About the only thing that they could have improved on is Chase Ross’ 5-for-14 shooting….. and I swear to God, I can not watch the senior from Texas short-arm another floater in the lane.
If you’re saying, “hey, wait, if Marquette probably can’t play much better that on offense in a game, does that mean….” I am here to say that yes, that’s what that means. The Providence game was Marquette’s second worst defensive performance of the season, giving up 1.277 points per possession to the Friars. Only the Indiana game was worse, and that means that the Golden Eagles have had a brand new “second worst defense of the season” game in three straight games. St. Johns: 1.233. DePaul: 1.237.
Look, if the solution for the rest of the season is redlining the engine on the offensive side of the ball because Marquette can’t possibly find a way to get stops, then so be it. I’m kind of okay with watching a lot of 90-88 games that come down to the final minute for the rest of the year. But the head coach says that his programs have a defensive identity, and we haven’t seen Marquette play passable defense — not good, passable — since they beat Xavier back on January 7th. If you’re not going to be able to do much better than the PC game on offense, then you sure as hell need to start figuring out ways to get a lot better on the other end to give yourself some space to work with, especially if Nigel James has a pedestrian game.
Marquette Last 10 Games: 2-8 with a win last time out snapping a three game losing streak.
Butler Last 10 Games: 5-5 with wins in their last two games.
All-Time Series: Marquette leads, 28-25.
Current Streak: Marquette has won three straight after taking the season series last year. They have also won six of the last seven, nine of the last 11, and 11 of the last 14.
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