Georgetown Hosts Marquette Monday Night

The Marquette Golden Eagles (16-12, 7-9 Big East) will travel to the nation’s capital for a date with the Georgetown Hoyas (15-12, 5-11 Big East) on Monday night at Capital One Arena. Both teams enter the game following losses over the weekend, with Marquette dropping its road tilt against DePaul (11-17, 4-12 Big East) while Georgetown lost at home to Providence (18-11, 9-7 Big East).

Marquette will look to prevent adding another bad loss to its NCAA Tournament resume, while Georgetown will hope to keep its NIT hopes alive.

Watch, Listen or Stream

Time: 7 p.m. ET

TV: FS1

Radio: 99.1 WNEW-FM (Georgetown), ESPN 540 (Marquette)

Stream: Fox Sports Go (where available)

For the Gambling Aficionados

Line: Marquette (-1.5)

O/U: 159.5

[via OddsShark]

Contrasting Styles

Playing Small Ball: The Golden Eagles feature the Big East’s most dangerous backcourt in Markus Howard (20.9 ppg) and Andrew Rowsey (19.4 ppg). Rowsey notched 35 points against Georgetown earlier this year, converting 11-of-11 free throws and six-of-nine 3-pointers, while Howard added 13 points. As a unit, the Golden Eagles put up 80.3 points per game. After struggling offensively against DePaul, Marquette will be happy to see the Georgetown team that ranks dead last in the conference in scoring defense.

Advantage on the Inside: Not to be outdone, the Hoyas boast their own prolific duo in juniors Jessie Govan and Marcus Derrickson. Both rank inside the top-15 in scoring, with Govan compiling 16.8 ppg and Derrickson adding 15.7 ppg, and they rank second and third in the conference in rebounding, respectively. Georgetown takes after its big men, and holds a +5 rebounding advantage over Marquette. Should the Golden Eagles struggle from the perimeter, there won’t be many second chance opportunities in the paint.

Conference Implications

A win for Marquette guarantees the Golden Eagles a top-seven finish, while a win for Georgetown would give the Hoyas a chance to take the seventh spot, provided they also defeat No. 3 Villanova (25-4, 12-4 Big East) in Philadelphia on Saturday. Should the Hoyas lose, they could finish as low as ninth.

Prediction

Georgetown has played well enough to win several more Big East games, but the Hoyas have been let down by late game execution repeatedly this season. The Hoyas will hope to rectify those problems on Monday night against a Marquette team that is reeling after its loss to DePaul. Emotional advantage: Georgetown.

Georgetown 84, Marquette 79.