Marquette Golden Eagles beat number one Villanova last season around this time at the Bradley Center. Marquette welcomed number one Villanova again in 2018, but they couldn’t finish the deal. They gave the Wildcats a strong fight, but it wasn’t enough as the number one team in the land held on to a slight lead for the remainder of the game. Unfortunately for the Golden Eagles, they go 0-2 in their tough week versus Xavier and Villanova, and now they have some work to do in the following week.

Home Markus continues to be a thing
Paint Touches pointed out a little while ago how Markus Howard just isn’t the same player at the Bradley Center. The numbers are staggering for the second-year player who seems to excel on the road, but he cannot seem to put it together at the Bradley Center. Not sure what exactly needs to be done to get Howard going at his home gym. With two big home games coming up this week, it’d be nice if Marquette found a way to figure things out for Howard to get this team running as a well-oiled machine.

Froling and Amin make key contributions
One of the major reasons why Marquette hung around in this game was the play of Sacar Amin and Harry Froling. Both were in double figures with Amin having 14 points and Froling with 11. This could be a major factor for Marquette moving forward. While Matt Heldt is helpful in the paint, Froling adds more scoring and showed it on Sunday. Amin continues to show flashes of a solid player for Marquette. He’s a classic glue guy who usually gets better as the season rolls on.

Not one to blame the refs but…
It’s hard not to wonder about this game from a ref perspective. It appears that Villanova gets a Duke-like whistle out there. There were so many things that went the way of Nova versus Marquette. Down the stretch, Amin drove to the lane to put the Golden Eagles down one with under a minute left, and it looked like he got slashed across the arm heading to the lane. No call was made, and Villanova ended up getting a bucket that proved to be the difference in this game. Refs have to be better down the stretch.

Next up
Holy huge week, Batman. Marquette has a must-win game against Butler on Wednesday night. They need a resume builder, and that’s exactly what this Butler game is on Wednesday night. They need to find a way to shut down Kelan Martin and get shooters open for three opportunities as they struggled with that at Hinkle Fieldhouse.

Charlie.