Near the start of the college basketball season, a reporter told Marquette point guard Tyler Kolek that the Golden Eagles had been picked to finish ninth out of 11 teams in the Big East Conference.
Kolek, staring at a board that depicted the predicted standings of the conference’s teams, dismissed the assessment and those who had made it with an expletive.
“We knew we were better than that, and we’re proving it now,” Kolek said last week during the Big East tournament.
Indeed they are. Kolek, a cocky but skilled 6-foot-3 point guard from Cumberland, R.I., was named the most valuable player of the Big East tournament after leading Marquette to its first championship in the conference, with a 65-51 victory over Xavier on Saturday night.
The Golden Eagles are the No. 2 seed in the East region of the N.C.A.A. men’s tournament and will face No. 15 seed Vermont on Friday. They are a popular pick to make a deep run toward a national title.
“They got a chance to be a Final Four team this year or better,” Connecticut coach Dan Hurley said after his team lost to Marquette in the Big East semifinals on Friday.
Marquette is one of several teams in the men’s and women’s tournaments that overachieved compared to preseason expectations and now have big, but attainable, dreams…
