Let’s put some numbers on the sense of things in the air since Marquette women’s basketball has looked sketchy at best over the last five games.
Thanks to the ever popular BartTorvik.com data filtering
system, we can say that over the last five contests, Marquette has been playing like the #101 team in the country. They’ve put up the #88 offense and the #158 defense, with those numbers adjusted for home and road as well as strength of opponent. That’s bad, especially when you realize those rankings are #54, #59, and #74 for the entire season so far.
The morning after beating Creighton, Marquette was #55 in the NET. As I write this on Saturday morning, they are #64.
After beating Creighton, Marquette was #58 in the Her Hoop Stats rankings. Through games played on January 29th, the most up to date information on the site on Saturday morning, the Golden Eagles are #72.
So, yeah. If your sense of things is “hey, this stinks and I don’t like it,” then you are correct, or at the very least, math and computers say that your feelings are accurate. Marquette is very much playing like they know that they blew their chances at an NCAA tournament appearance by blowing their lead against Seton Hall and no-showing the first nine minutes against Georgetown. Now, I’m not going to disagree with the sentiment that Marquette’s NCAA tournament hopes are pretty much shot…. but you know what might work out for you?
NOT PLAYING LIKE YOU ARE SAD ABOUT LOSING YOUR SHOT AT THE TOURNAMENT FOR THE LAST ELEVEN GAMES OF THE SEASON.
Anything’s possible. Okay, maybe beating UConn in the McGuire Center on February 14th isn’t possible, not unless Sarah Strong gets abducted by space aliens. But anything else is possible. Put together a run. Play like you’re angry. Play like you want to prove a point. Play like the team that stomped out Villanova and Creighton four days apart at the start of the month. See where that takes you. It’ll probably be more fun than desperately holding onto the last threads of a 20 point lead against DePaul as time expires.
Big East Game #13: at Georgetown Hoyas (12-9, 5-7 Big East)
Date: Sunday, February 1, 2026
Time: 4pm Central
Location: McDonough Arena, Washington, D.C.
Television: truTV, with JB Long, Christy Winters-Scott, and Autumn Johnson calling the action.
Streaming: trutv.com/watchtrutv or HBO Max
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 29-5 all time against Georgetown. The 63-54 Hoyas victory in Milwaukee back on January 17th snapped a 15 game Golden Eagles winning streak in the series that dated back to February 18, 2018. MU has still won 18 of the last 20 against the Hoyas and they have not lost in D.C. since January 2018.
When we previewed the first game against Georgetown this season, we talked about things had been on a downturn for the Hoyas since their 5-2 start to the season, or even just since Big East play had started. I would like to be able to say that handing Marquette their lunch back on January 17th was a pivotal point for them, but it’s hard to do that with just three games played, and making one of them a 41 point loss to UConn is definitely not helping the point. The Hoyas took care of Xavier for their only win since facing Marquette, and they’re coming off a six point home loss to Seton Hall on Thursday.
The real bummer of that for Georgetown is that the game fell apart early in the fourth quarter. The Hoyas had wiped out a lead, then fell behind again, then wiped out that lead again and led 42-41 on a tip-in at the horn by Khia Miller heading into the final 10 minutes. But when you don’t score for over six minutes in the fourth, you’re going to have a hard time winning. That’s what happened for Georgetown as Seton Hall scored the first nine points of the quarter to lead 50-42 with 5:57 left and then no one scored at all until GU finally got on the board with 3:48 left. The Hoyas never got closer than five points after that and even that was with just 32 seconds left.
Marquette’s problem in the first meeting was quite obviously giving up a 19-0 run out of the gate. However, that wasn’t the end of the game, nor was it really the biggest problem. The Golden Eagles committed seven turnovers to help Georgetown with that 19-0 run. That was essentially half of their 15 turnovers in the game, and MU only had one turnover in the final 15 minutes. The game arguably ended when Marquette got outscored 22-14 in the second quarter. Trailing 19-4 at the end of the first? Bad! Trailing by 19 points just over three minutes into the second quarter because you’ve been outscored 6-2? Worse! Giving up the final seven points of the half to trail by 23 at intermission? Worse! Putting up a 9-1 run in the fourth quarter to slash the margin to seven? Not terrible, but it’s really bad when you wait until there’s less than four minutes left to start it, and let’s be clear: It was a 10 point game with 30 seconds left. The 19-0 run didn’t have to be end the of the game, but the Golden Eagles let it be that way, even while Georgetown didn’t have a field goal for the final 6:46.
To be clear: Georgetown was not great in this game, they just didn’t have to be after all the turnovers to get them up 19-0 to start. Khia Miller was great, as she finished with 21 points on 8-for-10 shooting. Miller had a third of Georgetown’s 16 turnovers by herself, but that didn’t really matter after the start to the game. Marquette also got worked by Destiny Agubata, who put up 13 points, 10 rebounds (four on the offensive glass!), five assists, and three steals. All of this while the Hoyas shot just 45% as a team and only 5-for-15 behind the arc.
It sounds silly, but so much of Marquette’s problems in the first meeting with Georgetown can be summarized as “well, just don’t do that” or “well, just don’t let them do that.” This is not a great Georgetown team, but if the lackadaisical Marquette that we’ve seen for the last five games shows up again, it’s going to be a bad afternoon.
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