Marquette Golden Eagles vs Xavier Musketeers Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 03/13/25

The Big East tournament is rolling along, and the quarterfinal round features a terrific matchup between the Marquette Golden Eagles and Xavier Musketeers. While Marquette had an extremely impressive start to conference play, it became clear that much of the Golden Eagles’ success was due to the level of competition they faced during that 9-1 start to the Big East season. When Shaka Smart’s team has stepped up in class this season, they’ve struggled to get the job done, and that trend continued against the likes of UConn, St. John’s and Creighton over the back half of conference play. When looking at their schedule, it’s no surprise that the Golden Eagles have been trending down since the turn of the calendar year (44th at Barttorvik since January 1), which is the exact opposite of what Xavier has done in the span. 

The Musketeers are playing their best basketball of the season in 2025, sitting at 29th per Barttorvik over the past 2 months. That’s a pretty large sample size to base this handicap around, especially since Marquette has gone in the opposite direction in that span. Per Barttorvik, the Musketeers actually rank as the best team in the Big East since February 1, especially when factoring in their improvements on the defensive end of the floor. Given that Cam Jones and the Marquette offense is a unit that likes to get to the rim and attempts plenty of threes (top 50 in 3-point rate), Xavier’s improvements in both of those areas defensively could prove to be crucial in a game that should be within a few possessions in either direction for most of the contest. Sean Miller’s team has been strong when seeing opponents for a second time this season, and I think that trend continues on Thursday. Let’s take the Musketeers as a short underdog at Madison Square Garden.

Marquette vs Xavier prediction: Xavier ML (+120) available at time of publishing. Playable +110

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