No. 8 Marquette hosts No. 12 Texas after dropping in poll

Eighth-ranked Marquette will look to bounce back from an in-state upset when it hosts No. 12 Texas in the Big East-Big 12 Battle on Wednesday night in Milwaukee.

It also will be the first time Golden Eagles coach Shaka Smart faces Texas, where he coached for six seasons before taking the Marquette job prior to the 2021-22 campaign.

Marquette (6-2) is coming off a 75-64 loss at Wisconsin on Saturday that dropped the Golden Eagles from the No. 3 spot in the AP poll. Marquette, which trailed by 16 late in the first half, got within 52-51 with just under 12 1/2 minutes left in the game but failed to find a go-ahead bucket in the heated annual rivalry.

“We always break our games down culturally, defensively and offensively, and we weren’t good enough in any of those three phases (Saturday),” Smart said following the loss.

Texas (6-1) defeated Texas State 77-58 on Thursday behind a season-high 26 points from Max Abmas.

Against Wisconsin, the Golden Eagles were outrebounded 38-23, allowing 15 offensive boards that the Badgers parlayed into an 18-2 advantage in second-chance points. Marquette also was 7-for-29 (24.1 percent) from 3-point range.

“We clearly have a long way to go building our championship habits on the defensive end,” Smart said. “Guarding the basketball, blocking out and rebounding, being quicker to the ball, defeating screens, contesting outside shots. Clearly.”

The Golden Eagles average 79.3 points per game while allowing 67.0. They force 16 turnovers per game, outscoring opponents 19.3 to 8.3 in points off turnovers. Marquette is being outrebounded by four boards per game.

Kam Jones averages a team-best 16.4 points per game, Tyler Kolek adds 13.5 and Oso Ighodaro averages 12.6 along with a team-high 6.4 rebounds.

Marquette has played a grueling schedule so far, with wins over then-No. 1 Kansas, then-No. 23 Illinois and UCLA. The Golden Eagles fell 78-75 to then-No. 2 Purdue.

Texas took their lone loss against fifth-ranked UConn, 81-71 on Nov. 20 in the final of the Empire Classic in New York.

Against Texas State, the Longhorns trailed 50-49 with 10:45 remaining but closed the game with 28-8 run.

“It’s a 40-minute game,” Texas coach Rodney Terry said after the victory. “You have to continue to work the game the entire time. So, great learning from us. We’ll learn a lot from this game and we’ll try to continue to get better in the areas we need to get better.”

Abmas averages 16.7 points per game to pace a balanced attack that has four other double-figure scorers. Kadin Shedrick averages 14.2 points, Ithiel Horton 12.6, Tyrese Hunter 12.0 and Dillon Mitchell 11.6. The Longhorns average 81.3 points, while allowing 65.9.

Hunter, who transferred to Texas after being selected Big 12 Freshman of the Year at Iowa State in 2021-22, played his high school ball in Racine, Wis., at St. Catherine’s, which went 53-1 in his final two seasons there. Racine is about 30 miles south of Milwaukee.

Mitchell averages a team-high 8.9 rebounds for Texas, which has a 4.8-rebound advantage per game on the boards.

At Texas, Smart compiled a 109-86 (.559) record and guided the Longhorns to three NCAA Tournament appearances.

Marquette and Texas have met just once. The Golden Eagles came away with a 65-56 win in the championship game of the Milwaukee Classic on Dec. 27, 1977.

–Field Level Media

Texas Longhorns redshirt freshman cornerback X’Avion Brice entered the NCAA transfer portal on Monday as the 30-day transfer window opened.

Senior safety Jalen Catalon also entered the portal on Monday.

A 6’1, 183-pounder, Brice was a consensus three-star prospect ranked as the No. 650 player nationally and the No. 43 athlete in the 2022 recruiting class, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings. Brice initially pledged to Kansas early in his recruiting process before decommitting days after receiving offers from Texas and Oklahoma. The Sooners landed his second commitment less than a month later, but it didn’t stick as Brice took an official visit to Austin days before the early signing period opened in 2021 and flipped to the Longhorns on Early Signing Day.

After playing quarterback and wide receiver in addition to taking snaps in the secondary for Seguin, Brice was considered a developmental prospect when he signed, an evaluation that bore out over his two seasons on the Forty Acres. While redshirting in 2022, Brice appeared in blowout wins over ULM and Kansas, making his first career tackle against the Jayhawks. This season, Brice was third on the depth chart at boundary cornerback and once again made two appearances in lopsided victories over BYU and Texas Tech, recording one tackle against the Red Raiders.

Texas currently holds commitments from two cornerbacks in the 2024 recruiting class — Santana Wilson and Wardell Mack — while awaiting a decision next week from Kobe Black.

A busload of migrants was dropped off outside the Colorado Capitol building in Denver on Monday morning in what a city official believes is the latest in a wave of buses chartered by the Texas state government.

It’s unclear how many people were on the bus. Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat who was at the Capitol as the bus was unloading about 8:30 a.m., estimated the number of people onboard at 40 to 50. She directed them into the building to get warm while officials coordinated the next steps.

Gonzales said some of the migrants told her they’d come from Eagle Pass, a Texas town near the border with Mexico. Evan Dreyer, a deputy chief of staff to Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, said he hadn’t received confirmation about the circumstances of the bus trip but that it matched a recent pattern of buses arriving from the border state.

“The state of Texas, the governor’s office, has contracted with two or three different bus companies to transport migrants out of Texas to various locations around the country, Denver being one of those locations,” Dreyer said. “That’s our understanding, and that’s how this has operated for several months. Denver has received more than 200 charter buses direct from Texas over the last six months.”

Spokespersons for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott were not immediately available for comment.

Gonzales said the migrants she spoke to told her they were from Venezuela. More than 29,000 migrants, primarily from Venezuela, have arrived in Denver since December 2022, after groups of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border began overwhelming Texas cities. Many of the migrants have fled widespread violence and economic instability in the South American country, often traveling through Central America on foot.

Dreyer said city officials repeatedly have requested that arriving buses take migrants to Union Station or a city intake center, but those requests have been ignored. Migrants have been dropped off near city and county buildings, though Dreyer said he believed Monday was the first time people have been left at the state Capitol.

The migrants were later directed to the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office a few blocks away, Dreyer said.

Gonzales praised city officials for their work in helping migrants in recent months.

But Dreyer criticized the decision to drop the migrants in Denver without coordination or cold-weather clothing. Temperatures in Denver were in the low to mid-40s Monday morning.

“These are folks who have come from the Texas border after long journeys, and they are not prepared for cold weather,” he said. “And to drop them off like that, just randomly, in the cold — in the freezing cold — is inhumane, dangerous and it puts their lives at risk. It’s shameful.”

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