We already knew that Marquette men’s basketball was going to be in the 2026 Battle 4 Atlantis event in the Bahamas coming up this November. At the time back in May, it seemed that the event had shifted from an 8-team bracketed event where everyone plays three games to a pair of four team events with each team playing twice. The obvious presumption at the time was that Day 2 of B4A would be a Championship Game/Consolation Game format, with the winners and losers from the first day facing off on the second day.
We were still waiting to find out who the fourth team in Marquette’s side of the event was going to be after the news got out in mid-May, and now, thanks to Matt Norlander from CBS Sports, we have an answer: Everything is a mess.
Xavier is moving over to Marquette’s side of the event, and Mississippi State is taking Xavier’s spot in the group with Penn State, Memphis, and Wake Forest. Now, you might be saying to yourself, “Wait, isn’t Xavier in the Big East?” They sure are, which means that both the Musketeers and the Golden Eagles will play Texas A&M and Virginia in one order or the other at the Atlantis resort, and then go home. No Championship/Consolation format.
If you’re saying to yourself, “Hey, that’s stupid,” you’re correct. I think the explanation on what has happened here derives from the fact that Mississippi State is the team that’s dropping in to replace Xavier on the PSU/Memphis/Wake side. It would seem that the Bulldogs were the only team that the B4A administration could get to sign up to take the 8th spot…. but Marquette has already set up a home-and-home with Mississippi State for this season, so the Golden Eagles — understandably! — probably don’t want to entertain the possibility of playing them twice this year. On top of that, Texas A&M and Mississippi State are both in the SEC, so putting the Bulldogs with them gives you the same Marquette/Xavier problem.
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Wake Forest making the jump to the other side also brings up the same conference issue, as they’re in the ACC with Virginia. That leaves either Memphis or Penn State apparently refusing to move. Xavier agreed to do it, why wouldn’t they other than the relatively obvious “we have a signed contract” reason… which kind of goes out the door now that they’re going to face MSU instead of Xavier anyway.
I see A&M and Virginia coming off an NCAA bid last season and can’t help but wonder if there’s a certain amount of “yeah, we’re not signing up for those problems” from Penn State and Memphis. Both teams not only missed the tournament last year but also ended the season with a losing record. Both Mike Rhodes and Penny Hardaway are probably coaching for their jobs in 2026-27, so I get why they might err on the side of what appear to be slightly more winnable games for them. With that said, in Hardaway’s case, he’s now going to be facing an SEC team that’s less than a 3 hour drive from Memphis. If I was going to risk losing to an SEC team, I’d at least try to do it against one that’s further away AND likely to be better for the resume, which is what you get in Texas A&M.
If nothing else, it would appear that we have to give credit to Xavier head coach Richard Pitino for volunteering to be the team that moved. That’s going to give the Musketeers an improved non-conference schedule relative to what they had a month ago, and big picture: That’s going to benefit the entire Big East. I don’t know if it’s going to help Pitino in his second season after going 15-18 and tying Georgetown for last place in the conference in 2025-26, but at least it appears that he stepped up to the plate when it appears that Mike Rhodes and Penny Hardaway wouldn’t do the same.
With Wisconsin, Missouri, Michigan, and Mississippi State on the schedule alongside Texas A&M and Virginia in the Caribbean, I think we have the full freight of Marquette’s challenging non-conference contests spoken for. MU went 6 challenges and 5 buy games last season, so the math checks out here. The NCAA approved expanding the schedule by one game for this season, so there’s space to add another notable opponent and still have five buy games on the slate. I don’t know if a 27th high major game — counting the 20 game Big East schedule — is going to have that much of an impact on Marquette’s NCAA tournament resume as opposed to a sixth buy game, but it would definitely be better than adding West Florida, which begins their transition to Division 1 in 2026-27. We’ll have to wait and see which direction head coach Shaka Smart takes things in when the finalized schedule is announced…..
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