MILWAUKEE — The past six weeks could not have gone much better for coach Buzz Williams and the Marquette Golden Eagles.
Ranked No. 10 in the country, Marquette has won 11 of its past 12 games and is sitting in second place in the Big East with three games to play after crushing Rutgers 82-65 at home Wednesday night.
"I feel like we can beat anybody in the world," sophomore guard Vander Blue said. "We have all the tools."
Last season, the Golden Eagles advanced to the Sweet 16 despite finishing ninth in the Big East and barely sneaking into the NCAA tournament as a No. 11 seed.
But even after losing Jimmy Butler to the NBA as a first-round pick of the Chicago Bulls, Marquette is performing far better than it did a year ago.
Seniors Jae Crowder and Darius Johnson-Odom — both of whom transferred to Marquette from junior colleges — are candidates for Big East Player of the Year and are the Golden Eagles' top two scorers. Against Rutgers, Crowder scored 27 points on 11 of 14 shooting and Johnson-Odom added 21 points.
"The sky is the limit," Crowder said. "I've been saying that since Day 1. We can do whatever we want to do if we play the way we know how to play. We're trying to take care of business right now."
Barring a three-game losing streak, Marquette (23-5, 12-3 in Big East) will finish with its best conference record since joining the league in 2005. Since Williams took over the program from Tom Crean in 2008, the Golden Eagles have twice finished fifth in the conference.
But Williams wasn't ready to call this his best team in four years as head coach.
"I'm probably not mature enough to answer that question the right way," the 39-year-old said. "How it all plays out, I don't know. When you get lost in the numbers and all of the hype that's surrounding our run over the last month and a half, I think sometimes that sedates you. We're not good enough to be sedated and think that we're just supposed to win. We don't have a margin where we can do that. That's not how we operate anyway."
While the team had to adjust without Butler — who averaged 15.7 points and 6.1 rebounds last season — this group has added transfer forward Jamil Wilson and freshman Todd Mayo, the younger brother of NBA star O.J. Mayo.
"Our core this year is stronger with the development of me, Mayo and Junior (Cadougan)," Blue said. "I feel like we have a much better core, which makes the team that much better. I think this year we can compete more as a team. I feel like we're more of a complete core. ... We have a better chance to go far this year."
It will help Marquette's NCAA tournament run greatly if the team can enter the Big East tournament as a top-four seed. That will guarantee the Golden Eagles a double-bye, meaning they would have to win only three games in the conference tournament to leave as champions rather than five.
"If you get that double-bye, your chance of winning the tournament is very high," Crowder said.
But the top goal for Marquette right now is a best-ever Big East regular season finish, which it can achieve by winning one of the final three games on its schedule. Those games are at West Virginia, at Cincinnati and at home against No. 8 Georgetown.
"We want to make history," Blue said. "We want to win 13. We want to make our mark right there. It's our top goal to make sure Darius and Jae leave out of here with that chip saying that we arguably could have been the best Marquette team coming through here."
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