Hot on the heels of baseball season, it’s time for college basketball in Milwaukee. To put it positively, the city’s pair of Division 1 programs have room to grow after 2025-26 seasons that didn’t go as planned.
In last season’s preview, we wrote that Marquette’s philosophy not to participate in the transfer portal “could be significantly tested” last year as the Golden Eagles opted not to look outside to replace five contributors from the season before. They were tested, and they didn’t do well. They went 12-20 overall and 7-13 in Big East play. This year, they delved into the portal for three players who were on the floor for at least 55% of their respective teams’ minutes last season, brought back top contributor Nigel James Jr., and appear poised to bounce back into relevance in the Big East. James was an unanimous pick to the preseason All-Big East first team, with wing Royce Parham on the second team, and big man Sananda Fru on the third team.
Meanwhile, there was a point last season where things looked like they might be pretty good for UWM. They hung with a few much larger programs in non-conference play and opened the season 3-0 in the Horizon League but went 5-14 in their last 19 games and finished tied for eighth in the conference. They bring back about 38% of last season’s minutes, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but is well above the median for Division 1 programs this season, and their pair of transfer portal additions includes former Marquette guard Tre Norman. As a group, the Horizon League has outperformed its historical norms in recent years so the fact that UWM was picked to finish sixth in the league’s preseason poll means more than it might have in other seasons.
It’s been 15 years since the last time these two programs played each other: They met annually from 1994-98 and again from 2007-11, with Marquette winning all eleven but getting a challenge in their lone game at UWM in 2010. As you’ll see below, both schools definitely had room on the schedule to fit each other in this year.
Once again this season the best non-conference games featuring these two programs will largely happen somewhere else. Marquette goes to Michigan and sees Virginia, Texas A&M, and Missouri on neutral floors this fall, while UWM goes to Florida, USC, Vanderbilt, TCU, and Santa Clara. The two programs are still going to play 11 non-conference home games, however, and they’re ranked below:
11. Ripon at Milwaukee on November 8
UWM is only home three times during non-conference play and two of the games are against interesting mid-major opponents, but this is the other one, and it’s the Panthers’ only regular season game at the Klotschke Center. Ripon plays at the Division III level and returns four of the top six players in terms of minutes from last year’s team, but that team went 5-20 and finished tied for seventh in the nine-team Midwest Conference. The last Division III team to beat a Division I team in a regular season game was in December of 2022. This probably won’t be the next one.
10. Chicago State at Marquette on November 22
There are times where a power conference opponent schedules a lower-tier Division I opponent and perhaps doesn’t get the quality opponent they were hoping for. Maybe the game was booked when that opponent was on the upswing or before their coach left. When Marquette scheduled Chicago State, however, they almost certainly knew exactly what they were getting. Since the fall of 2015, Chicago State has played 11 seasons and won a total of 39 games against Division 1 opponents, slightly less than four per season in about 30 opportunities. Last season they won five conference games for the first time since 2014, but the players who accounted for 85% of their minutes left following the season. BartTorvik.com is projecting Marquette to beat them by 34 points.
9. New Hampshire at Marquette on December 9
Marquette is home for five straight games in a stretch covering more than half of December and the stretch includes some high quality opponents, but New Hampshire is a footnote on that list. KenPom.com has them opening the season as the 352nd best of 365 Division 1 programs, and the America East Conference’s preseason poll selected them to finish last among the league’s nine teams. They do have decent size, with five players among their expected contributors at 6’7” or above, but it still seems likely Marquette will beat them by dozens.
8. Wagner at Marquette on December 1
This is a case where a non-conference game would have looked better on other seasons’ schedules than it does this year. The Seahawks won the Northeast Conference in 2012 under future Connecticut coach Dan Hurley, finished the season as the 149th ranked team in the country under Bashir Peterson in 2022, and won their conference tournament under Donald Copeland in 2024. All three of those coaches have since moved on, however, and the best that can be said about Dwan McMillan’s first season in charge in 2025-26 is that it wasn’t as bad as expected. They opened the season as Ken Pomeroy’s 358th ranked team and only finished the season 305th. Every single player who took the court for a single minute for that team left the program after the season. They’re starting over with seven transfers from other Division 1 programs, although none of them played in more than 20% of the minutes for their respective teams last year. The Northeast Conference coaches predicted they’ll finish fifth in their nine-team league.
7. Mercyhurst at Marquette on November 2
It’s the Lakers’ third season as a Division 1 program and it’s largely been a successful transition. They’ve posted winning records in each of their first two seasons in the Northeast Conference, continuing a run of success where they had made five consecutive Division II tournament appearances from 2019-23. They’re also not eligible for the NCAA Tournament this season, as teams joining a new level have to wait four years to play in the postseason. This year, they’re bringing in four transfers who played at D1 programs last season, headlined by former Le Moyne wing Tennessee Rainwater. They finished second in the Northeast Conference’s preseason poll and two of the league’s nine coaches gave them a first place vote.
6. Detroit Mercy at Marquette on November 6
The Titans have only been to the NCAA Tournament once this century and have endured some rough seasons since then, but this does appear to be a program on the upswing. Head coach Mark Montgomery inherited a team that went 1-31 in 2023-24 and he posted a winning record last season, going 17-15 overall and 12-8 in the Horizon League. They’re returning over 43% of their minutes from last season, the most of any Horizon League school, and that includes a pair of productive wings in sophomore Tyler Spratt and senior wing Ayden Carter. The league’s preseason poll has them picked to finish seventh, a spot behind UWM.
5. Northern Illinois at Marquette on November 18
This might be another program that Marquette is just catching at the wrong time, although the “right time” probably wasn’t anytime recently. The Huskies have gone 28-78 in MAC conference games over the last six seasons and they’re more or less starting over this season with just 9% of last season’s minutes returning and 14 players transferring in. They’re also moving to a new conference this season, departing from the MAC to join the Horizon League for basketball.
The primary cause for hope for Northern Illinois is also a cause for some local intrigue. New Huskies head coach Matt Majkzrak is an Elkhart Lake native, a UW-Green Bay alum, and the former head coach at Bryant & Stratton in Wauwatosa. More recently, he’s taken Northern Michigan to four straight Division II tournament appearances and his new roster includes four players who followed him from there, plus Wauwatosa West alum Colin Hardrick, Brookfield Central alum Jack Daugherty, Arrowhead alum Bennett Basich, and Homestead alum Trevor Polite.
4. Saint Thomas at Milwaukee on November 21
This is only Saint Thomas’ sixth season as a Division I program, but they’re definitely getting used to making the trip from Saint Paul to Milwaukee. This will be the fourth meeting between these two programs in those six years, with the Tommies picking up wins in 2022 and 2023, and UWM getting a home win as part of the Cream City Challenge in 2024. This year Saint Thomas is among the favorites to win the Summit League and potentially make their first NCAA Tournament appearance.
The Tommies return Whitnall alum Austin Herro, the younger brother of Bucks guard Tyler Herro. He’s one of three Saint Thomas players to make the preseason All-Summit League team alongside guard Kendall Blue (who transferred back after a year at Nebraska) and forward Carter Bjerke, who was the conference’s most efficient shooter last season. This will be their fifth road game of the season, so they should be ready to play their best away from home.
3. Illinois Chicago at Milwaukee on December 12
As former conference rivals, UIC and UWM played twice annually from 1994 through the spring of 2022 when the Flames left to join the Missouri Valley Conference. This will be the two teams’ first meeting since. This Illinois Chicago team might be better than any of the squads the Panthers faced during their time as conference rivals, as they went 12-8 in a very good mid-major league last season and will open the season ranked even higher in 2027 (Ken Pomeroy has them 106th in the nation) than they were at the end of last year.
This season, the Flames were a close third in the MVC’s preseason poll and were named first on six of the 48 ballots, and two respected projection models (BartTorvik and EvanMiya) have them as the best team in that league. They return almost 60% of their minutes from last year and added former Stanford guard Benny Gealer, who averaged 11 points per game as an efficient scorer in the ACC last season. The Missouri Valley has sent multiple teams to five of the last 14 NCAA Tournaments, and Illinois Chicago could be part of the reason they do it again this year.
2. Mississippi State at Marquette on December 12
Marquette’s final non-conference game might also be their best preview of what the conference season ahead will look like. Mississippi State is opening the season as Ken Pomeroy’s #69 ranked team in the country and five Big East schools are within 20 spots of that. They also might be the 15th best team in a 16-team SEC, which speaks volumes to the depth of that conference.
Their hopes to outperform those expectations will depend heavily on their ability to meld a substantial transfer portal haul into a team. They added seven D1 transfers this summer, including four from power conference schools and six that played at least 48% of minutes for their former teams last year. They also return point guard Josh Hubbard, a high volume scorer who might be more of a centerpiece of his offense than any other player in the country. Head coach Chris Jans missed the NCAA Tournament last season but had been to six of the previous seven during his time with the Bulldogs and at New Mexico.
1. Wisconsin at Marquette on December 5
Who else could it be? There are only two other programs in basketball (DePaul and Xavier) that have faced Marquette more times than Wisconsin, and the 88th all-time meeting between the two rivals will tip off on a Saturday afternoon at Fiserv Forum. Rivalry aside, the Badgers are clearly the best team on this list and potentially the only one that will make the NCAA Tournament (Joe Lunardi of ESPN has them projected as a 9 seed).
Wisconsin does, however, still have questions to answer. Major contributors Nick Boyd (graduation) and John Blackwell (transferred to Duke) are both gone. When they were on the floor together, they combined to take above 57% of Wisconsin’s shots last season. They added a pair of three-point marksmen on the transfer portal and will likely continue to be more reliant on the three than nearly any other offense in basketball. At some point, however, they’re likely to need more from senior seven footer Nolan Winter, both in terms of offense and his ability to stay out of foul trouble and remain on the floor. This is also the Badgers’ first major test of the season, while Marquette will already have played Michigan, Missouri, Virginia, and Texas A&M by this point. Both teams will come in with a lot to prove and more to gain than just statewide bragging rights.