Marquette Battles Louisville Friday Night In NIT Season Tip-Off

The Marquette University men's basketball team (3-2, 0-0 BIG EAST) concludes play at the 2018 NIT Season Tip-Off Friday night at 6 p.m. CT when the squad takes on Louisville (3-1, 0-0 ACC) in the third-place game. ESPN2 will feature the national television broadcast, with Dan Shulman (play-by-play) and Jay Bilas (analyst) calling the action. Following Friday night's action, the Golden Eagles will return to Fiserv Forum to host Charleston Southern on Nov. 27 to open a seven-game homestand.

MU Making Third Trip To NIT Tip-Off

Marquette is making its third appearance in the NIT Season Tip-Off, which has been played in New York City every year since 1985 and hosted by the Barclays Center for the fourth-straight season.

While its been almost 20 years since the program was in the event's field, the Golden Eagles did find success in their recent trip to the Barclays Center, winning the title at the 2015 Legends Classic. MU downed No. 22 LSU and Ben Simmons in the semifinals before claiming an overtime win against Arizona State in the title game.

In its previous two NIT trips, MU fell to No. 6 Duke 87-74 to open the 1990-91 campaign and 10 years later came up short against South Alabama, 67-54, in the 2000-01 season lidlifter.

MU Searching For 40-Minute Performance

In Wednesday night's game against No. 2/2 Kansas, Marquette played one of its best halves of basketball this season, at both ends of the court, and as a result was in possession of a 47-38 lead at the intermission and led by as many as 12 points prior to halftime.

Unfortunately for MU, Kansas opened the second half with a 22-0 run to take control of the game. The Golden Eagles weren't able to find the bottom of the net until the 10:45 mark on a 3-pointer by junior Sam Hauser. MU did close the gap to eight points with just over eight minutes left, but the Jayhawks were able to once again extend the lead to double figures.

Marquette matched a season high with 14 3-point field goals made and Hauser was responsible for six of those, one short of his career single-game high. Sophomore forward Theo John finished with seven points and also swatted five shots, matching a career high.

Marquette-Louisville Usually A Conference Game

Marquette and Louisville have met nearly 70 occasions all-time, with a majority of those outings coming while both programs were members of Conference USA (1996-2005) and the BIG EAST Conference (2005-2013).

The series dates back to the 1951-52 campaign and the two squads most recently met during the 2012-13 season, with the Cardinals claiming a 70-51 home victory.

The Golden Eagles are also very familiar with first-year Louisville head coach Chris Mack, who spent the previous nine seasons at current BIG EAST member Xavier.