While Marquette's 82-76 win at Cincinnati Saturday was impressive, the Golden Eagles are far from the only men's collegiate hoops game in town, much less the state.

Bruce Pearl's UW-Milwaukee Panthers have emerged as a legitimate contender in the Horizon League after Saturday's narrow 92-91 escape against Loyola at Chicago's Gentile Center, the Ramblers' first home loss of the season.

And though both teams promised good things this year, their seasons are unfolding even better than expected -- Marquette is 15-3 (7-1) and just a half-game back of Louisville in the American Division of Conference USA; the Panthers are 16-5 (7-2) and just a half-game behind Illinois-Chicago in the Horizon League. Both teams are dead-set on playing tournament ball in March, with the Golden Eagles counting on an NCAA bid and the Panthers hoping for the same.

With Wisconsin at 15-4 and charging hard in the Big 10, could the state put three teams into the Big Dance?

The Golden Eagles, for one, should be a lock. Saturday's suffocating win at the Shoemaker Center was the Bearcats' fourth-ever conference home loss in that building. Tom Crean's team dominated play, holding a double-digit lead for all but the last minutes of the second half, when some long-range bombs helped make things respectable for Bob Huggins' Bearcats. {INSERT_RELATED}

The win was a preeminent statement of toughness for MU; not only did they win against their biggest rival on the road, they did so without the best effort of star Dwyane Wade, who was saddled with foul trouble early and didn't make a field goal until the second half.

The clear difference for Marquette was senior center Robert Jackson. The big fella had 21 points and six rebounds to help the Golden Eagles dominate the normally physical Bearcats on the glass, 37-22. For once, it was Marquette collecting offensive rebounds and Huggins whining about too many whistles -- the latter an oddity considering his team's style normally is associated with orange jumpsuits and nightly bed checks.

Jackson was solid, but Marquette's depth and poise portend more than the one-and-done trip to the NCAAs it experienced last year. Wade had two fouls in the first two minutes, but the Golden Eagles still opened a nine-point lead at halftime. Todd Townsend, Steve Novak and even Joe Chapman all made key plays, with Townsend's athletic putbacks and hustle drawing special attention.

Despite a subpar shooting performance, sophomore point guard Travis Diener continued to develop into a Cordell Henry-type leader. Wade oftentimes broke Cincy's press himself, but Diener's poise and periodic three-point accuracy (he was 3-of-10 from downtown) were more than adequate; his assists-to-turnover ratio now stands at 2.8 to 1 for the season.

Leadership, too, drives Pearl's Panthers, though in a different way. Starting with Clay Tucker, who poured in a career-high 36 at Loyola Saturday after facing down a potentially career-ending back injury earlier this year, UWM seems to have more veterans than the Oakland Raiders. Tucker, Dylan Page, Jason Frederick, Ronnie Jones and Nate Mielke pace an experienced squad trying to qualify for the school's first NCAA Tournament. After 21 games, upperclassmen have accounted for all but 242 of the team's minutes.

Pearl may lament that fact next year, but he and the Panthers have their eyes on a Horizon League title at the moment. Considering Butler failed to earn an at-large bid from the conference last year despite a 25-5 overall mark, it's a safe bet UWM will have to win the Horizon League tourney -- which opens on March 4 -- to get an NCAA shot.

At 16-5, the Panthers have eight games remaining; the next four at home, the last four on the road. Included are UIC, who knocked off UWM in Chicago on Jan. 9; Butler (in Indianapolis), who UWM beat at home for the first time in 24 years earlier this month; and Missouri Valley power Southern Illinois, an ESPN2 game set for Feb. 22 in Carbondale -- part of the network's "Bracket Buster Saturday" promotion which pairs off mid-major teams fighting for NCAA bids.

If, and only if, the Panthers ran the table, an at-large bid could be possible absent a conference tourney championship. But a current RPI of 96 -- despite playing both Wisconsin (RPI: 28) and Georgia (RPI: 1) -- would probably prevent that opportunity.

Marquette, of course, is thinking about more than just an invite. After falling to Tulsa last year in the first round, Crean wants at least one win in the NCAAs, and two would be doubly nice.

In the meantime, of course, there is the school's first CUSA regular-season title to pursue. The win over Cincy keeps them on track, but the Golden Eagles still play host to the Bearats in the season finale and have two games remaining with Louisville, winners of 15 straight and merely the hottest team in the nation. And before any of that, ACC power Wake Forest visits the Bradley Center for a non-conference game this Sunday afternoon at 1:30.

If Marquette can simply split those four games and win all but one of the rest, they should be in line for a four seed or better in the tournament, something Crean has undoubtedly been thinking about since his No. 5 team lost at the buzzer last year to the No. 12 Golden Hurricane.

As for seeds, Pearl couldn't care less. The ex-assistant to Tom Davis at Iowa is establishing a new basketball brand name in town in the improving Horizon League, and we'll learn a lot more about that journey over the next five weeks.