Oso planning to go pro
I thought I adequately explained it above but let me repeat for you:1. We had returning player in Hayward who was equally as good (if not better) than Matthews was as a junior--and with similar development could be counted on to approximate Matthew's performance.2. We had a reserve in Butler who had demonstrated that he was among the best offensive players in NCAA--statistically speaking possibly better than McNeal. If he merely extended his stats when receiving the additional minutes made available by the departing seniors would approximate McNeal's performance.3. We had a returning PG in Acker who had demonstrated a high degree of proficiency (2.5 assist to turnover ratio and 38% 3FG%) against eight teams--5 of which were arguably as tough or tougher than any competition we were likely to face the following year.4. We had two first team JUCO AAs coming in in DJO and Buycks, who based on the typical performance of other first team JUCO AAs moving up to D1 level, should have been counted on to provide strong minutes, scoring and team contributions.Was I wrong on any of these assumptions? No.Were any of them unreasonable? I don't think so, but you'll have to tell me why you think so. Which ones were unreasonable? To address your point on what we lost--well, if we had lost 64% of our scoring, but had nobody on the bench set to move up, and no good recruits coming on board, perhaps you would have had a point. But as I saw it, we had a very strong core of returning players enhanced by a very strong recruiting class of replacements coming in.If you believe that any of my four assumptions were off base, I think its high time for you to explain why. Stop telling me who left the team. Tell me why you thought the players we had weren't capable of getting the job done. Tell me why you thought Hayward couldn't step up. Tell me why you thought Butler's offensive performacne would regress. Tell me why you didn't think Acker would continue to play well. I really want to know whether you really thought our returning and incoming players would regress and/or be busts, or whether you honestly didn't take a close look at them.Yes, I know exactly what we lost. The question is whether you knew what we had returning and what we had coming on board.
The reason many college basketball analysts and Big East coaches didn't expect much from Marquette last year is that Acker spent most of his time at MU being a small part role player. Cubillan spent the prior season playing terrible basketball and only receiving 9 minutes a game. Nobody could have realistically expected that Cubillan would become a key and effective cog who averaged nearly 32mpg and would shoot 45.8 from the field to team with Acker productively in probably the tiniest backcourt in college ball.Then there was DJO and Buycks. While both were well thought of JUCO kids, neither had played a minute of high major college basketball, so they were still question marks to a degree. It's not as if all highly thought of JUCO kids come in and are automatically as good as DJO was last year.In retrospect, college basketball analysts and Big East coaches did underrate Marquette last year, but i can see reasons why they did. There was no reason IMO to think a midget backcourt of Acker/Cubillan could play 30 productive minutes a game together and DJO was quite a bit better than the normal JUCO recruit, even among the more highly thought of JUCO recruits. Hell, who was predicting that DJO would shoot nearly 48% from three while taking a lot of them and also be so effective attacking the rim?After what the team lost in the three Amigos, bad injuries to Otule/Junior, and what was left for the 2009-10 season, Buzz ended up having to play a very limited and undersized rotation. There were going to be many folks out there who would have had legit reason to think the trio of Acker, Cubillan, and DJO wouldn't be productive as they were from simply prior performance of Acker/Cubillan, having three guys that size on the court so often together, and DJO was better than should have been as expected. I'm generally more a glass half full type and even with that, no way did i expect Acker/Cubillan to be as good as they performed, that DJO would be that fabulous right away, or that MU could win that many games with those three playing together a ton while being only 5'8/5'11/6'2 tall.
Ok, so there were reasons for the underrating, but you would agree that MU was underrated last year. I think so too. And I think that you can take that one step further and say that they performed appropriately to their talent level, given hindsight and not basing it on unrealistic preseason expectations.
Yes college basketball analysts and Big East coaches did underrate Marquette prior to the season and understandably so IMO. The players though clearly were better than 12th in the Big East.That said, i do think Buzz did a fabulous job melding together what he had available to get 11 Big East wins. The team was severely undersized and had few bench options to help out when the main guys got tired or in foul trouble. ...
Nobody said that Buzz didn't do a great job last year. I just take issue with people saying they "over-achieved" and emphasizing it so much. I think it does a disservice to the players, making them sound like a bunch of stiffs who managed to get results far better than their talent would indicate. I think they were a very talented bunch who played very well and did what they were supposed to, regardless of what people thought they would do at the beginning of the year.
A team/the players can "over-achieve" to a degree without that having to mean the players involved were mainly just low talent stiffs who won almost entirely via hustle. There can be a middle ground where a fairly talented group of kids reach say 11 Big East wins instead of 8 because they were selfless team first players who by always giving 100% were better able to cover up for team flaws or limitations. I believe that because often enough in college ball we see the complete reverse. Supposedly very talented college teams that are expected to be really good, but not all of the players buy into a team first mentality and/or don't always play hard, so they end up losing quite a few more games than expected.
Nobody said that Buzz didn't do a great job last year.
I don't think it should be taken as an insult per se. I don't think any of us knew what we had before the season started. Who knew DJO would perform as he did? Who knew that Cuby was recovered and Mo would play as well as he did? Many unknowns last year, as there was this year.
Not true. Marquette 84 has stated time and time again that we UNDERACHIEVED our talent last year. Underachieving one's talent is hardly doing a "great" job. It's doing a sh*tty job. It's a common reason for firing coaches.
Whether a team "overachieves" or "underachieves" has to be related to what the expectations were going in. Having been picked last year for 12th in the BE, you'd more or less have to say the team "overachieved." This constitutes no denigration of anyone - rather, the team and the coach deserve credit for work well done.The follow-up question is "Did we get spoiled by last year's 'overachieving" to the extent that our expectations this year were too optimistic?" As several posters have pointed out, considering what we lost and our relative inexperience, this year's team is probably doing about what might have been expected, if not a tad better.
Whether a team "overachieves" or "underachieves" has to be related to what the expectations were going in. Having been picked last year for 12th in the BE, you'd more or less have to say the team "overachieved." This constitutes no denigration of anyone - rather, the team and the coach deserve credit for work well done.
We underachieved in five specific games--DePaul, Florida State, NC State, Notre Dame and WashingtonWe really only overachieved in one game--Villanova in the BET.
No. Whether a team Under- or over-achieves can only be based on the actual talent we had.
So based on our "talent" MU should have been 13-5 and tied for 2nd in the Big East. That translates into at least 2-1 in the conference tourney. So in your world our "talent" equated to a 26-7 regular season, resulting in a 2 or 3 seed in the tourney and a minimum Sweet 16 and quite likely Elite 8 finish (either 28-8 or 28-9). And that's just if Buzz gets out of the way and let's our mega talent take over. If he actually does something positive with it we're at least in the Final 4 and we're probably talking National Championship. Certainly no agenda evident in those kind of expectations.
So you're saying that you thought the losses to DePaul and Notre Dame should have been expected based on our talent? Really?And one big flaw in your straw man--even in a 2nd place tie with Pitt, WVU and VU, our combined record was 0-4 against those three teams in regular season (we did beat Villanova in the BET). So in the NCAA tournament, we would still be seeded behind each of them them--Pitt was a 3--we would have been a 4 or 5--which hardly equate to a "likely Elite 8 finish". But even with the 6 seed we received, we wound up losing to the #11 seed in the tournament. Wouldn't you expect that we at least survive to the 2nd round? How is that overachivement, when we are a 6 seed but lose in the first round?
Of course we had better talent than DePaul and should have beaten them. Don't think our talent was better than ND.The bottom line is you think anything less than a 13-5 conference record and a 28-8 sweet 16 appearance was an underachievement for a team consisting of Mo Acker, David Cubillan, DJO, JFB, Lazar and almost no bench. I think that's insane.
Of course we had better talent than DePaul and should have beaten them. Don't think our talent was better than ND.
The bottom line is you think anything less than a 13-5 conference record
and a 28-8 sweet 16 appearance was an underachievement
for a team consisting of Mo Acker (#4 nationally in A:T ratio), David Cubillan (#7 offensive rating in the Big East) , DJO (#6 3 point shooting percentage nationally, #1 in conference), JFB (#6 offensive rating nationally, #1 in the Big East) , Lazar(Only first round pick other than Wade in last 30 years) and almost no bench(15.9 ppg, 11 rpg).