Oso planning to go pro
No senior leadership.
1. You don't have to be here. It is completely optional. 2. Other things happened during those four years. You probably should acknowledge that.
That could be part of the reason, but wojo and his staff of former players are responsible to instill in the players that leadership. Jjj, Luke and wilson are not his guys, what has wojo et al done to instill that leadership. Probably very little. By the way, isn't rinehart a 5th year senior, but nobody mentions his name under that leadership lacking.The excuse of lack of senior leadership is getting old and lameIf wilson comes back next year, then he can be the senior whipping boy all by himself.
TAMUI do know, Newsie is right on you knowing ball.
Gonna have a rare disagreement with you, brew. The offense put up 39 in the second half. Yes, there should have been more drives and fewer 3's. But 39, with a 16 pt lead at halftime, should be enough. The problem was on defense.
If we had one strong big that could defend the basket we would have won. That is the greatest missing link. Wojo knows what needs to be done he simply is missing one major piece which apparently can not be developed with the folks on staff. I think we have some great shooters and the we can not expect more from our freshman.There is still time but someone in the center needs to man up if we are to make it to the Dance. Hopefully we can address the power forward issue next year.
Thought wojo worked with bigs at duke. And if we lack big to defend the basket, then that is on Wojo as he has been recruiting for us for 3 years nowHis only big has been heldt.
When was the last time we had a strong big that could defend?
His first recruiting class was Sandy, but he also added Levin, who left when he thought Henry would take his minutes. His second class had Henry and Matt. Next year we add John, Eke, and Froling. He tried to add another big last year and lost out Washington, Young, and Gill who all would have been eligible now. It's just silly to say he's not recruiting bigs.
That is still the main thing that concerns me about Wojo. I have been saying that since his first year.
I swear to God I'll pistol whip the next guy who says "adjustment" without naming specific game tactics and what they'd do differently with the current personnel.
To elaborate, Butler started the second on a 38-18 run. That's when the game was won. We were missing, they were off to the races and driving both to the lane and the line.Sure, after that we held our own, started driving, and were competitive (and put up enough points to look respectable) but by then it was too late.
We have blown a 18-point lead to Butler. We have blown a 10 point lead to Seton Hall. We blew a 15 point lead to Pittsburgh. We can stress patience and process - and even the fact that our current coaching staff still has yet to have their first full recruiting class as seniors, not aided in any part by the transfer of Sandy Cohen (or Wally Ellenson, or Traci Carter, or Steve Taylor, or John Dawson, or Gabe Levin) - but the reality is, in today's collegiate athletics landscape, if you stay down long enough, it gets harder and harder to get back up.I'm all for building things the right way, having the right staff in place, having the right student-athletes on the team, etc. However, if the team does not turn the corner, whether that be this year, next year or the following year (I honestly don't see any situation where a head coach is retained when he does not reach the NCAA Tournament when he has one of the largest basketball budgets in the country), then we are even further away because a new staff (with new vision on players) will come in and restart the process.It took Tom Crean until his fourth year to return Indiana towards national relevancy. It took Buzz Williams, arguably, his late-second or third year, to make Virginia Tech nationally relevant. Tony Bennett got Virginia into the tournament in his third year - after the mess Dave Leitao left behind. Ed Cooley - third year. Heck, Steve Lavin took St. Johns to the tournament in his first year after Norm Roberts didn't do it once in six years. Marquette is not any different that any of those programs. In some cases, we are clearly more prestigious due to resources and history. Why, then, should our program have more lenient expectations in terms of once again returning to an NCAA tournament? Is this an irrational reaction due to one loss? No - because this is not just one loss. This is a pattern of repeated defeat against programs that we should beat in order to get into the tournament. Because of Marquette's struggle, Xavier, Creighton and Butler have all entered the Big East and solidified themselves as the backbone - while Marquette, Georgetown and St. Johns have taken steps back. If we want to continue preaching sunshine and rainbows, go right ahead - you have that right. I'm just saying that when we have lowered our standards to looking respectable against Butler (or Pitt or Seton Hall), then the battle has already been lost. We should not aim to be competitive against those programs, our goal should be to win every game against programs like that. I guess we just aren't there anymore.
Chris Otule.
Why didn't we play some zone in the second half when they were basically running layup drills on us? I know Wojo is not a huge fan but we saw it last year and sporadically this year. That at least allows us to defend the paint a bit more and protect the guys in foul trouble. Yes, it exposes us on the glass but we couldn't have done much worse in that department.