I am here to inform you that Marquette men’s soccer is not eliminated from the Big East tournament after their 1-0 loss to UConn last time out.
Yes, they’re 1-4-0 in Big East play, but math is math: Marquette has three points in Big East action and with three matches left, they have nine points available to them. That’s enough to actually jump to the front of the Midwest Division standings because Creighton and Xavier, the co-leaders at nine points, went to a draw themselves on October 15th.
Marquette’s
much closer to grabbing the second wild card — it certainly seems like one of Creighton or Xavier will be the best non-division winner already — because Akron and UConn are sitting on just six points. Seton Hall got cooked by Georgetown in their most recent match, so they’re stuck on five points. DePaul and Butler both have five points, but Marquette beat Butler. If it comes down to a tiebreaker, that’s advantage Golden Eagles. MU gets the chance to defeat DePaul as well this weekend, and that would launch MU in front of the Blue Demons, 6-5.
There’s nothing about 2-15-2 in the last 19 Big East matches that says “oh, yeah, Marquette’s got this one,” but the door is wedged open, if just ever so slightly.
Big East Match #6: at DePaul Blue Demons (4-3-5, 1-1-2 Big East)
Date: Saturday, October 24, 2026
Time: 2pm Central
Location: Wish Field, Chicago, Illinois
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 31-7-3 all time against DePaul. The Golden Eagles have just one win in the last four meetings, although they went to a draw in 2023 and 2024 before breaking through with a 4-1 victory last season.
I had to wait until after DePaul wrapped up their non-conference competition for the year on Tuesday afternoon in order to write this preview. Very inappropriate of them to force me to manage my time according to their whims as we rapidly get closer and closer to the start of the basketball season and there’s so much to be written. In any case, at least DePaul won that game, beating Western Michigan 5-1. They were up 3-0 in the first 33 minutes, gave up a penalty kick right before halftime, and then put two more in the net in the second half. That’s a nice turnaround from getting just one win in their previous six matches. Still, those results have the Blue Demons in a better situation in the Big East standings than Marquette, and even better for DePaul: They’ve played one less match than MU to get to their total of five points. Good on you, DePaul.
We had figured out that The Noeh Hernandez Experience had returned when we did our whip-around the league preview as conference action got going, and that’s still true. Hernandez is still your scoring leader in Lincoln Park, putting up 19 points on six goals and seven assists, leading the Blue Demons in all three departments. However, we should note that Hernandez has just one assist over DePaul’s last two matches, and he’s scored just one goal across their last five contests. The minutes are there, the threats are there, he’s the only Blue Demon with more than 25 shots on the season, and he’s got 40 attempts. Getting even a draw off of DePaul will involve turning down the volume on The Noeh Hernandez Experience.
It’s going to require keeping an eye on some other guys, too. Luca Iaccino has four goal on just 14 shots this season for the second best total on the team. Daniel Hickiewicz has a team high five assists, and Quinn Bedwell is right behind him with four helpers plus a goal, too. While everything is funneling towards Hernandez, there are pieces at work around him that make him even more dangerous.
Chance Johnson has taken over in net for the Blue Demons, playing every minute in their last seven matches. As you can probably guess from that 4-3-5 record overall, that doesn’t mean that things are going super awesome for him, it just means he’s getting better results than Hayden Vostal was. Johnson has a goals-against average of 1.74 and he’s stopping just under 72% of shots on frame this year. Please remember: Those numbers are after allowing just a penalty kick to Western Michigan while only needing to make one other save on WMU’s other five shots in the match, and after making five saves to get DePaul to a scoreless draw with St. John’s in the match before that.
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