Weekly Marquette Vibe Check: 3/2/26

If you are reading this blog, you have probably related a bit too much with his A-tier Tweet at some point.

The 19-year-olds who attend my favorite university didn’t score enough touchdowns today so I’m in the basement, drinking until I fall asleep. My wife is crying, begging me to come upstairs & watch a Muppet Christmas Carol with my family. “I don’t care if I die tonight” I whisper.

— Dan White (@atdanwhite) November 27, 2022

In the moment, Marquette’s result affect my mood, my appetite and pretty much the rest of my day. It’s probably unhealthy, but it’s the truth.

And yet as time progresses, I find that the general ups and downs of a given season are usually replaced by the foggy memories we hold on to, whether good or bad. Which is weird right. I can spend a whole week riding high after a big win, and 3 years later all I’ll remember was the bad result at the end of the season.

So in order to best capture the vibes of any given week, I figured I’d start a running log using the least emotional measurement everyone uses. KenPom. I’ve taken the Adjusted Efficiency Margin he basis his ratings on from every Monday back through 2017 in order to give us some context.

This Year

I’m sorry peeps, this one is on me. After a no doubt victory over an injured Georgetown, I opened my big mouth and put down 2K positive words about this team, and then we got that DePaul fiasco.

I’m mostly being cheeky, 1 bad game does not negate 2 months of significant improvement, but as has been the case a few times this season, this team just can’t build off positive momentum.

Even having come back from 19 to make it a one possession game with 4 minutes to go, poor awareness and terrible free throw shooting made the final minute quite hapless. The vibes are low.

NCAA Tournament Odds

LOL, remember when I thought this was worth tracking? Marquette has to win the Big East Tournament, so basically 0%.

Player Impact

To make up for removing the NCAA Tourney section, here’s a new part, updating the player performances as measured by Hoop-Explorer’s Player Impact grade in my 2026 dashboard.

I do like when the data agrees with my initial reactions. Nigel was quite human for once on offense, and recorded an abysmal 74 ORtg, but still graded out as a positive net contributor along with Adrien Stevens, the only 2 that can say so after that fiasco.

Shaka’s Tenure

Of course, even though this is meant to highlight a given week’s ups and downs, I still want to throw some context in there. Here’s a look at how Marquette has graded out in KenPom each week of Shaka’s tenure.

(The horizontal “Top XX” lines are set not at any given year, but at what the averages for the 10th, 30th and 50th ranked teams are.)

Marquette is currently below the lowest point in Shaka’s previous seasons by 1.0 points.

Program History

And going back a bit further than that…

(The horizontal “Top XX” lines are set not at any given year, but at what the averages for the 10th, 30th and 50th ranked teams are.)

As of 3/2/26, Marquette is officially above the 2015 team, so not the worst in 20+ years. It was actually above the 2016 finish as well before dropping .89 points just on Sunday alone.

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