Looking Within While Ignoring Everything Else Led Marquette To An Unexpected Big East Title

It was just over five months ago that Tyler Kolek delivered perhaps the most memorable response to any question ever asked at a Big East Conference Media Day when a reporter sought out his thoughts regarding a predicted ninth-place finish for the Marquette Golden Eagles.

Kolek, a 6-foot-3 guard from Cumberland, Rhode Island, responded with two words — only one of which is suitable for publication while the other … well, let’s just frequently autocorrected to a type of waterfowl to the frustration if iPhone users.

While his response made for great social media fodder, few outside observers realized that Kolek wasn’t simply brushing off the slight or even trying to go viral. Instead, he was actually revealing what just might have been the Golden Eagles’ mantra head: ing into the season; not so much a burning desire to prove people wrong and make a few experts feast on humble pie — though, one would assume those to be delightful added benefits — but rather, an almost complete and total inward focus; blocking out any and all external noise and distractions and leaning on each other, day in and day out.

“That’s where it all starts, is the fun that we have being with each other,” Olivier-Maxence Prosper said after Marquette rallied for an overtime victory over Xavier in mid-February. “Every day we come to practice, workouts, during the games, we’re having fun. “We enjoy our company. We enjoy being around each other.

It worked.

Marquette was playing largely under the radar until Nov. 29, when it ran then-No. 6 Baylor out of the gym in a 96-70 rout and again, six week later when the Golden Eagles knocked off another sixth-ranked team, this time UConn, to improve to 6-1 in the Big East.

They’d lose their next time out but then just once more over their next 10 games before clinching their first-ever outright Big East regular-season championship Tuesday night with a 72-56 victory over Butler.

Kolek led the way, as usual, finishing with 21 points and 10 rebounds to put an exclamation point on his Big East Player of the Year candidacy and it’s almost a sure bet that Smart will take home some hardware, too, as the league’s Coach of the Year.

“We have a special group of guys,” Smart said. “It was a fun celebration downstairs but the calendar is about to turn to March. It’s exciting to win the regular season but we’re not done.”

Along with its first outright Big East title — and fifth conference championship overall — the No. 6 Golden Eagles have also reached their highest ranking in the Associated Press poll since 1978, surpassed the 20-victory mark for the first time since 2018 and even if they fall in the regular-season finale this weekend against St. Johns, would mark the fewest total losses in a season since the 2003 squad 27-6 en route to the Final Four.