It’s that time of year, just right around the corner of the start of the men’s college basketball season. Outta nowhere, as usual, with no fanfare, Ken Pomeroy has hit the PUBLISH button on the preseason rankings for the 2026-27 season over at KenPom.com!
Let’s just get right into what you want to know: Where does Marquette stack up in the rankings?
Shaka Smart’s team is going to start off the 2026-27 season at #34 in the KenPom rankings. That’s after the Golden Eagles went from #47 to as low as #121 last season before ending the campaign at #83. Needless to say, I will sign for #34 right now without asking any follow up questions. The underlying numbers to MU at #34 to start the year are the #48 ranked offense and the #20 ranked defense. Both of those would be massive improvements on last year’s season that ended with a 12-20 overall record. The Golden Eagles had the #118 offense in terms of efficiency last year, and they ended up with the 54th most efficient defense. Again, finishing with both preseason projections would be A-OK with me, so let me know how and when and where I need to sign a contract for that.
For whatever it’s worth, KenPom’s computer algorithm also thinks that Marquette will play about four possessions faster per game this season than they did a year ago. That’s probably leaning on the Golden Eagles being a bit more adept at forcing turnovers in the three campaigns previous to last year than they were a year ago. If Shaka Smart’s defense is going to crank up the pressure again, then that’s going to trim down the defensive possession lengths (because they end in turnovers faster than with shots) as well as the offensive possession lengths (because some percentage of turnovers turns into runout layups/dunks which are very quick possessions).
By the way, rough math says that #34 should be good enough to earn an NCAA tournament bid in a 76 team tournament environment like we’re getting next March. With that many at-large bids available, it should be essentially impossible for a top 40 team to miss the tournament now. Keep that in mind as I tell you what the algorithm says about the Big East and Marquette’s schedule.
Speaking of the Big East!
Connecticut — #11
St. John’s — #23
Creighton — #30
Villanova — #32
Marquette — #34
Providence — #39
DePaul — #56
Xavier — #58
Seton Hall — #64
Georgetown — #75
Butler — #88
You see that #56 for DePaul? I would like to reprint something that I put in DePaul’s Summer Vibe Check:
Are you prepared for “Can DePaul make the tournament?” conversations in January? It feels like that could be a thing that’s on the table if things go right for Holtmann for the first eight weeks of the season.
Not sayin’, just sayin’.
The algorithm is squishy on the league, by the way. When it comes to the projected standings, UConn is at 14-6, but Providence is projected to finish sixth while only ending up three games behind the Huskies at 11-9. That “five teams between #23 and #39” is responsible for that, and the fact that Xavier is in eighth place but only five games behind first place is worth keeping an eye on, too.
As always, Marquette’s 21-11 overall record and 11-9 record in Big East play is a “most likely outcome in thousands of simulations” type of projection. If we go game-by-game, Marquette is favored to win 23 of their games, which means a record of 24-8 heading into the Big East tournament. That would also be a mark of 14-6 in Big East play.
Anything that lands between 45% chance of victory and 55% chance of victory is a coin toss situation, as those are one point games in the projection model. MU doesn’t have any of those on the board until we get to late January, but there’s still a few from there to the end of the season.
Coin Toss Wins: at Xavier (51%), vs St. John’s (55%), at DePaul (50%)
Coin Toss Losses: vs UConn (47%)
If the coin falls Marquette’s way, then that’s an extra win for the Golden Eagles, and maybe that means 25-7 and 15-5 in the Big East. If they all go against? 21-11, 11-9 in the Big East…. which is actually the original projection from the KenPom computer.
There’s a few more games in there that are out to 40% or 60% chances of victory, and those are still one possession games. That’s not quite as up in the air as a one point projected margin, but it still means that things could go a lot of different directions for the Golden Eagles.
Questions? Thoughts? Complaints? Fire away in the comments, that’s what they’re there fore.
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