Tom Keegan: My All-Time Marquette Roster
Written by: noreply@blogger.com (Tim Blair (aka NY Warrior))
Keeganoids rejoice. The pride of the Class of '81, Tom Keegan, has graciously returned to CrackedSidewalks with a new column. Tom is the sports editor and columnist for the Lawrence Journal World in Lawrence, Kansas. Enjoy!
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My All-Time Marquette Roster
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wLC1BvCK-88/SSVSeDKAyAI/AAAAAAAAAO0/jpDq93oYUS0/s200/keegan.jpg)
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wLC1BvCK-88/SSVSeDKAyAI/AAAAAAAAAO0/jpDq93oYUS0/s1600-h/keegan.jpg)by Tom Keegan
Class of '81
The ground rules for my all-time Marquette roster of 13 players: They have to be young enough that I remember them in Marquette uniforms, which usually were among the coolest in the nation.
First, the coaching staff.
Naturally, the late, great Al McGuire is the head coach. McGuire loved portraying the image that he really didn't get involved in the details of basketball when he coached. Nonsense. He saw things most others didn't, felt the game in a way few felt it, which was obvious listening to him call games. Sure he was funny and tough, but above all he was smart.
Assistant coaches: Hank Raymonds, Rick Majerus and John Glaser.
Raymonds was the perfect assistant. He didn't care about the limelight, didn't yearn to get the credit and was the perfect complement to Al. Majerus has the right personality for recruiting and a gift for teaching big men how to play the game, even if he never could figure out how to wake up the guy he called "the biggest sleeper since Rip Van Winkle," Roman Mueller.
Glaser's role? Please, that should be obvious to anyone who reads the message boards. (My hand is up.) Put him in charge of teaching players how to excel from the wide post, the way Caleb Green did in leading Oral Roberts to an upset of Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse a year before Kansas won the national title.
The starting five: Dwyane Wade, Butch Lee, Earl Tatum, Bo Ellis and Jim Chones. Two Chicago players, two from New York, one from Wisconsin, a pretty representative cross-section of Marquette basketball's geographic history. Picture how many scoring opportunities Wade would create for Lee and Tatum driving to the paint and dishing.
The bench, listed in order of minutes played: Maurice Lucas, Dean Meminger, Doc Rivers, Steve Novak, Jim McIlvaine, Tony Smith, Travis Diener and Tony Miller. What a blend of muscle, blurry quickness, defensive prowess in the post and in the post and long-range shooting.
Need a zone-buster? Call on Novak or Diener. The opposing point guard lighting you up? Make it Miller time. T-Mill will make him pick up his dribble. Need to get a more athletic team on the floor? Send Rivers and Smith to the table to check in. The situation call for a skilled banger? Lucas is good for 25 minutes a night on this team. Dean the Dream is good for the same amount of playing time on the perimeter. Need a shot-blocker to plant that panic in the minds of the shooters, bring McIlvaine, the Alter Boy, off the bench and watch him change their shots.
OK, enough fantasy. Back to reality. Which aforementioned Marquette legend is available to offer his services to fix Dominic James' shot? Not Hank. He enjoys his court-side seat and doesn't need the stress. Majerus is busy coaching Hank's alma mater, St. Louis University. Hmmm, that leaves ... you got it, Glaser. The least he could do is send Buzz Williams a note offering to tutor James. Something tells me he has the time. It's worth a shot.
Tom Keegan, a 1981 graduate of Marquette University, is sports editor and columnist for the Lawrence Journal World (http://www2.ljworld.com/news/sports/columns/tom_keegan/) in Lawrence, KS. Keegan votes in the Associated Press college football and college basketball polls and is a Baseball Hall of Fame and Heisman Trophy elector. He posts on message boards under the handle: dont.do.it.just.dont.doit
http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2008/11/tom-keegan-my-all-time-marquette-roster.html
Quote from: Tom Keegan on November 20, 2008, 12:00:02 PM
OK, enough fantasy. Back to reality.
Crap, and you had me all ready to win another NC with that lineup! Good picks. If only recruiting was that easy :)
You may also be dreaming about Glaser offering his services to Buzz. Well, that is unless Buzz asks for his help.
An all-time list without George Thompson, MU's all-time leading scorer? Yikes, huge oversight.
Quote from: Norm on November 20, 2008, 11:05:40 PM
An all-time list without George Thompson, MU's all-time leading scorer? Yikes, huge oversight.
Keegan is clear in the opening line of the column.....the selections are based on players Tom actually saw play at MU. As a kid who grew up in upstate NY and graduated from MU in 1981, GT played just a bit too early based on the stated ground rules.
Quote from: Norm on November 20, 2008, 11:05:40 PM
An all-time list without George Thompson, MU's all-time leading scorer? Yikes, huge oversight.
+1, He saw Meminger play, but not George? They played together for 1 Year (68/69 season).
Maurice Lucas, Jim Chones, Butch Lee, George Thompson and Bo Ellis the starters.
Bench---Wade, Meminger, Tatum, Whitehead, Brell, David Boone and Doc
Head Coach Al with Rick and Kevin O'Neill as assistants.
Uniforms--Bumble bee's
In my opinion, Bo Ellis was the greatest college player in MU history and Wade the greatest talent, but not top five while at MU.
Great list. I'm an '83 grad but born and raised in Milwaukee so as the son of an alum I attended games sin e 1970. I can't argue with the list too much, I would probably add Larry McNiell though.