Marquette basketball is finally riding high again after 2 top-10 upsets

Marquette added to its rich and lengthy basketball tradition Wednesday night by knocking off a No. 1 ranked team in a regular season game for the first time in program history. The 74-72 toppling of reigning national champion Villanova also sparked renewed hope amongst the Golden Eagle fan base that the program can get back to some of the more traditional success they’ve enjoyed for the better part of their 100 years of existence.

In 2014, Marquette saw its streak of eight consecutive NCAA tournament appearances (and three straight trips to the tournament’s second weekend) snapped after a disappointing 17-15 campaign. Weeks later, there came equally disappointing, and perhaps even more shocking news: head coach Buzz Williams was leaving to take the same gig at Virginia Tech, a inexplicable step down in the eyes of most Milwaukeeans.

The confusion and despair screeched to a halt when interim Marquette athletic director Bill Cords inked Steve Wojciechowski, the longtime Duke assistant who seemed unwilling to leave Mike Krzyzewski’s side unless it was for the perfect gig. Marquette presented that opportunity in Wojo’s eyes, and he and a reinvigorated fan base set out to tackle life in the new Big East together. It didn’t go swimmingly.

Wojo’s first Golden Eagle team was ravaged by injuries and defections, leaving him with eight scholarship players for the bulk of the season. The result was a predictable one. Marquette finished with a losing overall record (13-19) for the first time since the ‘90s, and tied with Creighton for last place in the Big East.

Success on the recruiting trail in the offseason revitalized everyone associated with Marquette hoops, as Wojciechowski was able to reel in a top-10 class, headlined by five-star stud Henry Ellenson. The big man was as good as advertised, and Marquette was able to win 20 games in 2015-16, but an 8-10 conference record once again left the Golden Eagles sad on Selection Sunday. When Ellenson announced after the season that he was headed to the NBA, Marquette fans began to openly question when the level of success they had become accustomed to would be returning to the Bradley Center. They also began to openly question whether Wojo was the man capable of making it happen.

Those questions were tossed around more frequently following a start to the 2016-17 season that saw Marquette lose two of its first four games, and fall at home by nine to archrival Wisconsin. When Big East play began with two losses in three games, the Golden Eagles appeared to be firmly established on a path that would carry them away from the NCAA tournament for a fourth straight season. It would be a streak of futility that Marquette fans hadn’t seen since the final two years under Mike Deane and the first two under Tom Crean.

The doom and gloom remained around the program until last Saturday, when highly talented (but highly inconsistent) graduate transfer Katin Reinhardt dropped a season-high 21 points in a 102-94 road upset of No. 7 Creighton. In the minds of the college basketball public, however, the upset came with an asterisk. Just five days earlier, Creighton had been dealt a crushing blow when star point guard Maurice Watson Jr. had torn his ACL during the team’s win over Xavier. This was the Blue Jays’ first foray into life without Watson, and it was understandable that it didn’t go ideally for the home team.

There would be no asterisk on what the Golden Eagles achieved on Tuesday. Thanks in large part once again to the strong play of Reinhardt, Marquette was able to overcome a 17-point second half deficit to deal No. 1 Villanova just its second loss since the 2016 Big East Tournament.

Just like that, Marquette is 14-6 with two enormous resume wins in its back pocket, and Wojciechowski is more popular in Milwaukee than Robin Yount. If the Golden Eagles can just hold serve and win the game’s they’re supposed to win over the final six weeks of conference play, then they would seem like a safe bet to hear their name called on Selection Sunday.

Perhaps more importantly than that is the simpler fact that the bounce seems to be back in Golden Eagle basketball. Marquette is a proud program with an undervalued, rabid fan base. Seeing the new Big East enjoy so much success without much contribution from a program that was supposed to do much of the heavy lifting felt off. Thankfully for everyone associated with the program, it finally looks like those days are on the verge of becoming a thing of the past.