#740 ASA PLAY ON Xavier +2.5 over Marquette, Thursday at 2:30 PM ET - With a win here XU solidifies their spot in the Big Dance as ESPN currently has them as one of the last 4 in. A loss could push them out of the tourney. The Musketeers have been playing at the top of their game with 7 straight wins and 12 of their last 15. Their top player and leading scorer, Zach Freemantle, missed the first few games of the Big East season including their first meeting with Marquette but since he’s come back this team is on a roll. They faced the Golden Eagles twice this year and both teams won on the road by exactly 2 points. In their win @ Marquette, the Musketeers made only 2 of 17 from beyond the arc, were outscored by 18 points from beyond the arc, and still led by 19 points in the 2nd half (won by 2). That terrible 3 point effort was absolutely an outlier as Xavier ranks 11th nationally hitting 38.5% of their triples. In their tight home loss vs Marquette back in December, they played without Freemantle (as we mentioned above) and still had a shot to win. The Eagles started the Big East season winning 9 of their first 10 games but since they are just 4-6 with their wins during that stretch coming vs Seton Hall, DePaul, Georgetown, and Providence, all teams that ended with losing records in conference play. Since mid January XU ranks as the better team by nearly 20 spots (24th in the country to 42nd for Marquette per Torvik). Xavier is the better shooting team, the much better 3 point shooting team, and they make almost 80% of their FT’s. We’ll take the points here as we expect an XU win.