Wisconsin-Marquette Keep Rivalry Alive Amid Weird Basketball Year
Due to college football mostly going with conference games only, some rivalries were left out. There is no Georgia-Georgia Tech, Louisville-Kentucky, Florida-Florida State. All those games were wiped out. College Basketball is in a weird in-between. They need non-conference games to bolster resumes for the NCAA Tournament. Yet college basketball doesn’t want to travel as much they would in a normal year. This led to the ever-popular MTE tournaments. Wisconsin and Marquette will be playing as the finale of the MTE with Arkansas Pine-Bluff and Eastern Illinois joining them. If one or neither team can play, Wisconsin and Marquette will proceed as a standalone game.
@mikebroeker of longstanding Marquette esteem notes the MU-UW game is scheduled for Dec. 4. So with this MTE planned for late Nov., the logistics around the MU-UW game (moving it or not, if push were to meet shove) could be tough, so the 12.4 game might stick as standalone.
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) October 21, 2020
Everyone who figured this out deserves a ton of credit. This is a rivalry that might not matter to all in Wisconsin. But it is huge in southeastern Wisconsin. The rivalry is real and a fun game typically every year. There is no word on crowds yet, but it’s likely it will be truncated compared to years’ past. That will be a bummer. This rivalry thrives on the rowdy environment of Milwaukee or Madison. It is also one of the best days of the year for day drinking. Everyone is out and about having a good time whether Marquette is at their home gym or not. While bars will still be open, things will not be what they’ve been. And this will be a Friday night which is new for the rivalry. Regardless of all of this, it is better than nothing and keeps the in-state matchup alive.
Marquette will have their sights set on an upset against a Wisconsin team that will likely be ranked in the top ten. This could be a huge resume win for the Golden Eagles. Steve Wojciechowski’s record against the Badgers is varied. He has gone 3-2. Golden Eagles haven’t lost back-to-back games against the Badgers since the talented Final Four teams of the mid-2010s.
Charlie.