#656 ASA TOP PLAY ON 10* Creighton -4.5 over Marquette, Saturday at 2:30 PM ET - The Blue Jays are playing their home finale here and trying 2 catch Marquette for 2nd place in the Big East. The Golden Eagles sit 2 games ahead but they have this game and a game vs UConn yet on the docket so Creighton definitely has a chance to catch them if they win this game. It looks like Marquette will be without their starting PG Tyler Kolek (15 PPG & 7.5 APG) who is one of the top players in the Big East. He injured his oblique muscle on Wednesday and wasn’t able to practice on Thursday. When these 2 met in Milwaukee the Golden Eagles squeaked out a 72-67 win with Kolek and Sean Jones (also injured and out for this game) combined to score over 40% of Marquette’s points that night (30 points). Two keys in that game were aberrations in our opinion with Marquette, a poor rebounding team, +9 on the boards. The Golden Eagles also attempted 10 more FT’s but they score the fewest points in the league from the FT line. If those 2 things go Creighton’s way at home, like we think they will, this should be a cover. The Jays offense is nearly unstoppable at home averaging 86 PPG while hitting 52% of their shots. They are 13-2 at home this year (26-4 SU since the start of last season) with their 2 losses coming by 1 & 2 points and they topped the Big East’s beat team, UConn, here by 19 points in February 20th. Marquette lost on the road to the UConn team by 28 points just 3 days prior to that. This is Marquette’s first road game since February 17th and with the Golden Eagles being without much of their firepower in this game, we just don’t think they can keep up with Creighton. Lay it.