In the span of two hours, that Marquette bandwagon sure emptied quickly.

Considered a legitimate Final Four-caliber team with arguably the best backcourt in the country entering their game Wednesday night against Connecticut, the Golden Eagles took a double whammy, seeing their 17-game home winning streak ended by Connecticut and learning that senior guard Dominic James had broken his foot and would be done for the season.

That changes everything for this club.

There is now a very real chance that Marquette could end the season on a four-game losing streak, with Sunday's game at Louisville looking like a probable defeat and games with Pittsburgh and Syracuse still to go. It seems a lock that the Golden Eagles will drop below fifth-place Villanova in the Big East standings, which would be costly as the top-four finishers get a bye to the quarterfinals of the conference tournament.

James was fourth on the team in scoring and led Marquette in assists. Wednesday's game was the 128th of his collegiate career, a school record. He was the team's best perimeter defender and easily its heart and soul. He currently ranks first in Marquette history in in field goals attempted (1,534), second in assists (631), third in points (1,749), fourth in steals (238), sixth in field goals made (625), tied for seventh in free throws attempted (529) and 10th in three-pointers made (168).

MU, which is just 1-5 ATS in its past six, still has two excellent guards in Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews, but it was James who brought the ball up the court most times. And this team is driven by its guards - the frontcourt was dominated by Connecticut on Wednesday.

"We had a small margin of error all year and now that's completely gone," MU coach Buzz Williams said to reporters. "We have to play perfect."

Look for Maurice Acker to assume most of James' minutes. He had played more than 10 minutes just once in the past six games before Wednesday, when he played 33 minutes against Connecticut and finished with six points, four assists and no turnovers.

Louisville has no such issues. The Cardinals will have had nearly a week off since crushing Georgetown on Monday, shooting a season-high 66.7 percent (8-of-12) on three-pointers.

The Cards have won four games in a row (4-0 ATS) and trail first-place Connecticut by a half game in the league title race entering the weekend (the Huskies play Notre Dame on Saturday). Coach Rick Pitino believes his team could be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1983 even if it doesn't win the conference title.

"I think that there's going to be two Big East teams (as No. 1s), it's been that way the whole year," he said to reporters.

The Cardinals are 4-1 against ranked teams this year (4-1 ATS). If you tune in on CBS, you will see them in throwback uniforms against Marquette, sporting the style of the late 1960s. Louisville leads the all-time series with Marquette 37-24 and 20-11 in Louisville. UL won last year 71-57 in Milwaukee.