Marquette entered Tuesday night’s game at home against Rutgers as one of the teams on the outside looking-in for the NCAA Touranment, according to ESPN’s bracket guru Joe Lunardi. The Golden Eagles needed to take care of business against the hapless Scarlet Knights, who entered the game 0-7 in Big East play, in order to stay in the at-large picture – especially after dropping a game at equally hapless DePaul last week.

But, this time, the Golden Eagles took care of business.

Darius Johnson-Odom and Jimmy Butler each scored 16 points to pace Marquette to an 82-59 victory. Maurice Acker added 14 points, Jimmy Fulce 13 and Lazar Hayward 12 for the Golden Eagles (12-8, 3-5 Big East).

The win now allows Marquette to enter Saturday’s pivotal matchup at Connecticut with some confidence, after they had dropped two straight games at DePaul and Syracuse.

Here is a rundown of Marquette’s NCAA Tournament qualifications:

Record: 12-8 (3-5 Big East)

Key wins: Xavier (neutral court), Georgetown (home).

Key losses: Florida State (neutral court), North Carolina State (home), DePaul (away).

Key stat: Marquette is 0-5 in true road games this season.

tbontemps@nypost.com