A disappointing season has come to an abrupt end for Marquette, as the Golden Eagles were left out of the NIT field when it was announced Sunday night.
Marquette then announced it will not participate in any other tournament, meaning the school will miss the postseason completely for the first time since 2000-01. The Golden Eagles are also the only Division I basketball school in the state of Wisconsin to not make the postseason, as Wisconsin and UW-Milwaukee are in the NCAA tournament and UW-Green Bay is in the NIT.
Picked to win the Big East in the preseason, Marquette finished sixth in the conference with a league record of 9-9 and an overall record of 17-15.
This marks the end of the careers of seniors Davante Gardner, Chris Otule, Jake Thomas and Jamil Wilson. The four participated in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament the last three seasons and made the Elite Eight in 2013.
So many automatic bids to the NIT -- regular-season conference champions not winning their league tournaments -- likely did Marquette in. With an RPI of 90, the Golden Eagles would have been the worst team in the field according to that metric. West Virginia had the highest RPI of at-large teams in the NIT at 87.
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