The Marquette Golden Eagles produced 17 points from their starters on Sunday and fell to 8th ranked Villanova 73-56 in Philadelphia on Sunday.
The Golden Eagles (17-12, 9-7 Big East) also committed 15 turnovers and saw their NCAA tournament hopes take a big hit. Marquette may have to win the Big East Conference tournament to land the automatic conference bid into the NCAA tournament. The chances of an at-large bid would appear to have disappeared.
Villanova moved into first place in the Big East with the win, coupled with the Xavier win over Creighton on Saturday. The Wildcats (26-3, 14-2) earned their 26th win for the first time in program history. Villanova teams had won 25 games on four previous occasions.
Marquette has two games left in Big East regular season play. They’ll play at Providence tomorrow night before returning home on Saturday to face St. John’s.