Already in 2011 that bit of kismet is over.

Marquette, the No. 11 seed in the Big East tournament, jumped out to a 17-0 lead and beat No. 14 Providence 87-66 Tuesday night to earn its way into tonight's second round against the Mountaineers.

West Virginia (20-10), the tournament's No. 6 seed, will face the Golden Eagles (19-13) in today's final second-round game at Madison Square Garden. Tipoff is set for 20 minutes after the first game of tonight's session (Cincinnati-South Florida), or about 9:30 p.m. It will be televised by ESPN.

If the Mountaineers get past Marquette, they won't be facing an upset winner on Thursday, either. The winner of tonight's game draws third-seeded and No. 14 Louisville (23-8), one of four teams that earned byes into the quarterfinals.

Not only did Marquette earn its way into the second round of the Big East tournament, the Golden Eagles also might have also finally secured an NCAA berth. While 10 league teams, including No. 20 WVU, are considered locks for bids, Marquette is generally considered still on the bubble.

Marquette also beat Providence 10 days ago in Milwaukee by 24 points.

Tonight, West Virginia faces the task of reversing the results of the lone regular-season matchup with Marquette. Back on New Year's Day in Milwaukee, the Golden Eagles won 79-74, part of an 0-2 start to the Big East season for the Mountaineers.

In that game, West Virginia made a star of Jae Crowder. The junior college transfer forward, who would go on to average just over 12 points per game, exploded for 29 against WVU, making 12 of 14 shots, handing out five assists and stealing the ball four times.

He's not likely to repeat that performance.

"He probably won't bank a couple in,'' WVU coach Bob Huggins said.

WVU forward Cam Thoroughman has nothing but bad memories of that Jan. 1 loss, in which the Mountaineers actually played well save for the first four minutes and the final 90 seconds. They fell behind by 11 right from the start and then went scoreless after leading by a point with 1:44 to play.

"They started off really hot and Jae Crowder had 29 or something like that. That can't happen again,'' Thoroughman said. "But Marquette's a tough place to play. When they get it going there they're really good. They beat some really good teams there.

"I want to play them again just because of what happened up there last time. I felt like we should have won that game.''

BRIEFLY: Just for the record, as of Tuesday two of the foremost forecasters of the NCAA field were nearly identical in their opinion of West Virginia.

Joe Lunardi of ESPN had the Mountaineers as the No. 5 seed in the Southeast Regional (New Orleans), with first- and second-round games in Tampa. The opener would be against 12th-seeded Butler in a bracket that also includes fourth-seeded Kentucky (the potential second-round foe) and No. 1 seed Pitt (an Elite Eight matchup).

Jerry Palm, meanwhile, had WVU as the No. 5 seed in the West Regional (Anaheim), also in a bracket potentially with Butler and Kentucky, but with Notre Dame as the No. 1 seed.

Both, by the way, had 11 Big East teams in the bracket, including Marquette.

USA Today's Marlen Garcia had an even more optimistic projection. Garcia doesn't fill out a bracket, but picks the top four seeds in each region. He had West Virginia as a No. 4 seed to start the week.

West Virginia began the day Tuesday ranked No. 15 in the RPI (behind No. 7 Pitt, No. 9 Notre Dame and No. 11 Georgetown in the Big East) and with the nation's No. 2 strength of schedule.

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.