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Notre Dame at Marquette

The Marquette Golden Eagles will look for their first win over a Top 25 team when they host the No. 11 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Monday night in a Big East Conference showdown. Marquette fell 89-81 at No. 5 Pittsburgh on Saturday, their fourth straight loss against a ranked opponent. The Fighting Irish improved to 11-0 at home with a 76-61 win over St. John’s on Saturday, but are 0-1 in conference play this season. Taking a look at the odds for this game, oddsmakers have Marquette favored by 3-points over Notre Dame, with the total sitting at 147.

Notre Dame comes in with an overall record of 14-2 and are 3-1 in conference play. The Fighting Irish’s only conference loss came at Syracuse 70-58. Notre Dame however has already beat then No. 19 Georgetown (ranked No. 9 when they played) and No. 9 Connecticut in their first four conference games.

The Fighting Irish are led by senior guard Ben Hansbrough, who is averaging 16.3 points and nearly four assists and four rebounds a game. Hansbrough scored 21 points against Connecticut and then followed that up with 26 points against St John’s. Hansbrough however had just 12 points at Syracuse.

Marquette is 11-5 overall and 2-1 in the Big East, and are in desperate need of some big wins to build up that NCAA Tournament resume. In the Golden Eagles latest lost to Pitt, they allowed the Panthers to shoot 60% from the field. The fact that the Panthers shot that well and only won by eight points, says a lot about how good this Marquette team can be.

The Golden Eagles are led by junior guard Darius Johnson-Odom, and will need a big game out of him tonight if they are going to beat the Irish. Johnson-Odom has scored 20 or more in all three conference games this season, including 29 points in a win at Rutgers last Wednesday.

Notre Dame won 63-60 at Marquette last March, thanks to 18 points from Tim Abromaitis and 14 points and 13 rebounds from Carleton Scott. Abromaitis  is averaging 16 points and seven rebounds a game this season, while Scott is averaging 11.9 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks a game. The only problem is Scott is out with a hamstring injury.

Both of these teams can score the basketball, as the Fighting Irish average 78.3 and the Golden Eagles 80.8, and I think it is going to come down to which defense plays better, and so far this season it has been Notre Dame, but the loss of Scott really hurts them inside.

Still I think you have to take the points and Notre Dame in this one, as I think the Irish really match up well with the Golden Hurricanes and will be able to keep this game very close and most likely find a way to win.