As I look through the recruiting notes, it is common to see recruits favor a particular conference in the schools they say they have interest in. In the Midwest top recruits often list Big 10 schools and out east they often list Big East schools, west coast is Pac-10, south is SEC and so on.
If DePaul can get back to respectability, combined with ND and MU (maybe Louisville and Cincy) could establish a "Midwest contingent" of Big East schools. Maybe then recruits from the Midwest could start seeing themselves as Big East players instead of Big Ten players first and then be favorably inclined to seek out a Midwest school of the Big East.
I don't see the world as zero sum where a good DePaul means they have to take away from MU and/or ND. A good DePaul could mean that decent recruits want in to our club (conference) and we all win. The loser under this scenario is the Big 10.
Curious if anyone has a different thought.
I can't think of a recruit in recent years who both DePaul and Marquette were vying for. I think the Big East recruiting efforts out of the Midwest have been helped mightily because of MU and ND's success... whether DePaul being a top tier team would help MU is another story. My opinion is a rising tide lifts all ships. But others on this board would probably say that they want DePaul to be in the cellar as long as possible so they're not a threat on our schedule or on the recruiting trail.
It has been my experience that if MU is rising DePaul is falling and vice versa. I do not see a DePaul resurgence as good for MU.
Quote from: bilsu on April 03, 2010, 12:41:45 PM
It has been my experience that if MU is rising DePaul is falling and vice versa. I do not see a DePaul resurgence as good for MU.
Not really, but even if so, it's more coincidence and correlation. Neither program's success or failure is dependent on the other's success or failure. They don't share the same media market, don't share the same fan base and - remarkably, when you think about it - have not gone head-to-head for recruits all that often over the last 20+ years.
I guess my point is we should be going head to head with DePaul (that is, after/if they resurge and get good again).
It's not uncommon to see Midwest McDonald AA type players say they interested in say MSU, WI and OSU. My guess is before anyone even contacts them, they decided they want to go to a Big 10 school. For a coach, this is a HUGE advantage. The conference helps you get big-time recruits as your final three before you even start the process.
Likewise if DePaul gets back into the mix hopefully the top Midwest players will say, before Buzz even calls, their top three are the Big East schools in the Midwest like MU, DePaul and ND (also Cincy and/or Louisville). If they start thinking they live within the boundaries of the Big East, and see the hype of a high nationally ranked Big East game between MU and DePaul, I think that would only help.
Quote from: bilsu on April 03, 2010, 12:41:45 PM
It has been my experience that if MU is rising DePaul is falling and vice versa. I do not see a DePaul resurgence as good for MU.
Get real - if both MU and DePaul have good coaches and recruiting, then both schools will have good teams.
Does UNC being good hurt Duke, or vice versa? No. Time to embrace competition!
Quote from: rocky_warrior on April 03, 2010, 03:52:19 PM
Get real - if both MU and DePaul have good coaches and recruiting, then both schools will have good teams.
Does UNC being good hurt Duke, or vice versa? No. Time to embrace competition!
If you're 75 years old and have watched the ups and downs of MU and DePaul through decades, you will have remembered both teams being in the NCAA tournament together just six times--the most recent being 28 years ago.
You will also have remembered that the reversals of fortune through the years were directly related to either MU or DePaul winning the head-to-head recruiting battles.
Maybe you forgot that they landed Q Richardson, while we tried to accept that David Diggs was just as good--in 2000 DePaul went to the NCAA tournament based on Richardson's contributions. We were barely above .500.
I wonder if we would have had that long dry spell in the 1980's if we had landed David Booth or Mark Aguirre or Terry Cummings, or Walter Downing--players that we competed with DePaul head-to-head for.
On the other hand, I wonder where we might be today if DePaul had landed Bo Ellis, Doc Rivers or Dwyane Wade--players we competed head-to-head for and won.
But I'm sure none of those players mattered to either team--its purely
coincidence that Marquette was good when we had Dwyane Wade and DePaul was good when they had Aguirre or Richardson.
The most recent significant player we went head-to-head was Mac Koshwal. Think we might have been a bit better off in 2008, 2009 or 2010 with Koshwal inside?
Any success DePaul has had through the years has come largely at the expense of MU.
I have to agree with 84 here. People always say that if depaul becomes a power house have only been one or two recruits we've gone head to head over... Right but if both of us become consistently ranked teams than that will happen more and more.
And even if it hardly ever happens one recruit can be the difference between three years of first round bounces and a tourney run. I'd rather have MU be the team that is getting tribune headlines and I don't want chicago kids growing up depaul fans.
If the big east breaks up and depaul ends up in some random mid major i won't be shedding any tears.
Quote from: Marquette84 on April 03, 2010, 04:05:47 PM
Any success DePaul has had through the years has come largely at the expense of MU.
No.
What you're saying
might be correct if the two teams were competed head-to-head on more than the just a basketball court.
But, by and large, they have not.
You make much out of Richardson, but he's one of the very few players the two schools both recruited hard over the past two decades. And I'll assume you were being tongue-in-cheek about David Diggs.
Wade? DePaul did not compete with MU for Wade. Pat Kennedy never offered him a scholarship. He signed Imari Sawyer and Andre Brown instead which, at the time, the vast majority of people thought was the right thing to do.
The vast majority of players who have been key to MU's success since the early 90s - Mac, Key, Hutchins, Wade, Diener, Novak, Three Amigos, Hayward - were guys DePaul never was seriously involved in, if at all. MU hasn't been good because it's beating DePaul for recruits. It's cause they're beating UCLA (Mac); Wisconsin (Diener, Matthews, Blue); Illinois (Novak); Pitt (Hayward); Purdue (McNeal, DJ). I honestly can think of no key player for Marquette over the past decade ro so for whom MU beat out DePaul.
The two legit names you brought up were Koshwal and Richardson. Two guys in a decade. And despite DePaul "winning" those battles, they've had the far inferior program over that decade.
Likewise, the two schools aren't competing for the same fan bases or for attention in the same media market. With rare exceptions (like when MU grad Dan McGrath ran the Tribune's sports department) Maquette gets less attention in the Chicago market than anybody in the Big Televen.
The reversals of fortune between the programs over the past 30 years have had almost nothing to do with recruiting battles. It's been about coaching decisions. MU slid badly in the 80s because they hired a not-ready-for-prime time Rick Majerus then compounded matters with Bob Dukiet. DePaul is in its current state because they screwed over Joey, replaced him with a charlatan who couldn't coach then made the mistake of all mistakes with Jerry Wainwright.
If the theory that both can't succeed at the same time had any merit, how do you explain the success of both programs in the late 70s and early 80s?
Agree. Way, way too much is made of DePaul costing Marquette players. DePaul's rise in the 70's did keep some players from Marquette. No question. However, there was no way Marquette was getting all of them, and often, it did not make nearly as much difference as the anti-DePaul people claim. Remember Walter Downing? Huge recruit. Verbally committed to Marquette, then stayed home and went to DePaul. Then changed his mind and transferred to Marquette. Downing was a good player. He was not the team-maker people expected. DePaul did well without him once he left. Marquette made the NIT two years in a row with him on the roster.
Richardson would have been great at Marquette, and no doubt would have made a difference. Less of a difference than you think. Richardson spent two years at DePaul and went pro. DePaul made one trip to the NIT and lost in the first round of the NCAA the next year. The year after that, Diggs certainly won more games for Marquette than Richardson did for DePaul.
I think DePaul did take a look at Denier, and perhaps their biggest recruiting win over Marquette was when DePaul took his cousin Drake while Marquette took a kid out of Chicago. Drake wanted to join his cousin at Marquette, but the coach didn't want him. When DePaul made the dance a couple years later and Marquette went to the NIT, he was the best player on the team. Meanwhile, Marquette's Chicago recruit had left.
Meantime, the players Marquette has gotten out of Chicago, like Wardle and Wade and Barro were players DePaul didn't recruit. It would be great to have Koshwal, but to my knowledge, Marquette did not recruit him and if we did, he was not on the verge of signing.
Now look at Marquette's roster for next year. Number of players coming from Chicago? One. I do not know if he ever considered DePaul, or if DePaul might have gotten him if they had another coach, but if he had not come to Marquette, Buzz would have signed someone else. This year and last Marquette had one player from Chicago. De Paul didn't recruit him. The rest are from Texas, North Carolina, Philadelphia, Florida, Madison, Toronto, and Senegal. Boy, DePaul really cost us for those guys, didn't they? There are a bunch of players in the Big East who we went after and didn't get. They went to some other Big East school instead. Maybe we should hope that all those teams suck so that all those players will want to come to Marquette instead.
In the early 80s when I was at MU, Wisconsin was truly awful (Cofield/Yoder years). from 1977 to 1987 the Badgers finished no better than 8th in the Big Ten (last three times in that stretch). The Badgers went from 1947 to 1994 without an NCAA appearance.
It was argued that the state of Wisconsin could not support two ranked programs and if Wisconsin ever resurged, MU would fall off.
We know that is not true.
It's not a zero sum game. As was mentioned before, Duke and UNC coexist.
I would argue that Depaul resurging is good for us and good for the Big East. The loser is Illinois and IU. Recruits will think about the "Midwest big east schools."
Quote from: Pakuni on April 03, 2010, 05:00:38 PM
Wade? DePaul did not compete with MU for Wade. Pat Kennedy never offered him a scholarship.
If they had a better coach who was running a successful program with better assistants he may have offered him. And that is why it is a good thing that they suck.
I don't understand the logic of arguing about the past ten years and saying 'when they sucked they didn't compete for our recruits, therefore, even if they take steps to improve and start being successful, they will never steal one from us.'
If they get better will the necessarily hurt us? NO.
But could their improvement cause them at some point to steal one or two recruits? YES.
Can one or two recruits make a huge difference in a team's success? YES.
So should we all sit around an pull for depaul to get their heads out their asses? NO.
Quote from: Pakuni on April 03, 2010, 05:00:38 PM
No.
What you're saying might be correct if the two teams were competed head-to-head on more than the just a basketball court.
But, by and large, they have not.
You make much out of Richardson, but he's one of the very few players the two schools both recruited hard over the past two decades. And I'll assume you were being tongue-in-cheek about David Diggs.
Wade? DePaul did not compete with MU for Wade. Pat Kennedy never offered him a scholarship. He signed Imari Sawyer and Andre Brown instead which, at the time, the vast majority of people thought was the right thing to do.
The vast majority of players who have been key to MU's success since the early 90s - Mac, Key, Hutchins, Wade, Diener, Novak, Three Amigos, Hayward - were guys DePaul never was seriously involved in, if at all. MU hasn't been good because it's beating DePaul for recruits. It's cause they're beating UCLA (Mac); Wisconsin (Diener, Matthews, Blue); Illinois (Novak); Pitt (Hayward); Purdue (McNeal, DJ). I honestly can think of no key player for Marquette over the past decade ro so for whom MU beat out DePaul.
So if I read you correctly, you are saying:
Depaul has
not been successful much over the last 20 years.
Marquette
has been successful over the last 20 years.
Marquette has recruited a number of great players that DePaul didn't even try to recruit.
It seems obvious to me that if DePaul wants to be as good as we are, then they would have to upgrade the quality of player they recruit. In other words, instead of recruiting from a pool of players a step or two below us, they would start competing head-to-head in the same group of players that we recruit.
Furthermore, it seems obvious to me that if DePaul were to start recruiting the same players we do, they'll start winning some of those battles.
Quote from: Pakuni on April 03, 2010, 05:00:38 PM
The two legit names you brought up were Koshwal and Richardson. Two guys in a decade. And despite DePaul "winning" those battles, they've had the far inferior program over that decade.
But you don't deny that losing those two players has hurt Marquette.
My question is what happens when DePaul throws their hat in the ring with UCLA (Mac); Wisconsin (Diener, Matthews, Blue); Illinois (Novak); Pitt (Hayward); Purdue (McNeal, DJ)?
I think--as Koshwal and Richardson show--when DePaul goes up against us they can win.
Quote from: Pakuni on April 03, 2010, 05:00:38 PM
Likewise, the two schools aren't competing for the same fan bases or for attention in the same media market. With rare exceptions (like when MU grad Dan McGrath ran the Tribune's sports department) Maquette gets less attention in the Chicago market than anybody in the Big Televen.
We don't get as much press as the Big Ten. Neither does DePaul or the rest of the Big East. We never will. The "dream" of Big East equality with the Big Ten just isn't going to happen.
So what will happen if DePaul is worth covering again? Well, the press will have to find airtime or space somewhere--right now we probably get more than DePaul.
Will the Illini lose coverage? Hah! Notre Name? Northwestern? The Bulls, Hawks or Bears? White Sox or Cubs?. No, no, and no.
The team that stands to lose most is Marquette.
Quote from: Pakuni on April 03, 2010, 05:00:38 PM
The reversals of fortune between the programs over the past 30 years have had almost nothing to do with recruiting battles. It's been about coaching decisions. MU slid badly in the 80s because they hired a not-ready-for-prime time Rick Majerus then compounded matters with Bob Dukiet. DePaul is in its current state because they screwed over Joey, replaced him with a charlatan who couldn't coach then made the mistake of all mistakes with Jerry Wainwright.
Your attempt to unlink coaching from recruiting is misguided. BTW, I think it started before Majerus. Raymonds was losing players like Aquirre and Cummings to DePaul.
But more imporantly, those bad coaching decisions led to lost recruiting battles.
Similarly, when DePaul screwed up its coaching selections, it hurt THEIR recruiting.
Quote from: Pakuni on April 03, 2010, 05:00:38 PM
If the theory that both can't succeed at the same time had any merit, how do you explain the success of both programs in the late 70s and early 80s?
If the theory that both can
succeed at the same time had merit, how do you explain 16 DePaul NCAA appearances without MU, and 21 MU appearances without DePaul? Compared to six years out of sixty when both were successful at the same time?
Plus, I don't think many would support the case that 79, 80, and 82 for Marquette were our glory years. We had already taken a pretty big tumble from the level we were at from 70 through 77.
Quote from: Marquette84 on April 03, 2010, 06:50:13 PM
We don't get as much press as the Big Ten. Neither does DePaul or the rest of the Big East. We never will. The "dream" of Big East equality with the Big Ten just isn't going to happen.
So what will happen if DePaul is worth covering again? Well, the press will have to find airtime or space somewhere--right now we probably get more than DePaul.
Will the Illini lose coverage? Hah! Notre Name? Northwestern? The Bulls, Hawks or Bears? White Sox or Cubs?. No, no, and no.
The team that stands to lose most is Marquette.
84, you're an old man living in the past (but of course I'm not :) ). Recruits do not read the paper and have not for 10 years. Newspapers are for people that wear Depends and will die off with them in a few years.
Recruits watch ESPN and read blogs/internet. Face Book has more influence on Chicago area recruiting decisions than the Tribune. That is where the attention will come from.
Yes, if DePaul resurges and MU continues to improve, the rivalry will be rekindled and it will garner attention in the media that recruits pay attention to. And that can only help.
Quote from: AnotherMU84 on April 03, 2010, 07:04:54 PM
84, you're an old man living in the past (but of course I'm not :) ). Recruits do not read the paper and have not for 10 years. Newspapers are for people that wear Depends and will die off with them in a few years.
Recruits watch ESPN and read blogs/internet. Face Book has more influence on Chicago area recruiting decisions than the Tribune. That is where the attention will come from.
Yes, if DePaul resurges and MU continues to improve, the rivalry will be rekindled and it will garner attention in the media that recruits pay attention to. And that can only help.
Fine. There's only so much room on your iPad screen, so if DePaul gets more pixels, we get less :)
Seriously, though, where do you suppose all those people posting on facebook get their information? Many of them are linking directly to the Tribune and SunTimes articles--so while the recruits aren't reading the papers directly, they are still getting the same information.
Now consider someone who is writing his own articles. Lets say influencer on facebook or some other online source can write one article a day. If his posts on MU and DePaul had been weighted 90% toward MU and 10% DePaul, and suddenly it is 50% MU and 50% DePaul, how does that help us?
Quote from: RawdogDX on April 03, 2010, 06:18:22 PM
If they had a better coach who was running a successful program with better assistants he may have offered him. And that is why it is a good thing that they suck.
I don't understand the logic of arguing about the past ten years and saying 'when they sucked they didn't compete for our recruits, therefore, even if they take steps to improve and start being successful, they will never steal one from us.'
If they get better will the necessarily hurt us? NO.
But could their improvement cause them at some point to steal one or two recruits? YES.
Can one or two recruits make a huge difference in a team's success? YES.
So should we all sit around an pull for depaul to get their heads out their asses? NO.
1. Who said "they will never steal one from us?"
2. Even when they have "stolen one from us" (I forgot recruits were property who have to be stolen to go to other schools), it hasn't tipped the balance in their favor.
3. I'm not pulling for DePaul. Never said I was. Rather, I just don't believe that in order for MU to be good, DePaul
must be bad (as has been argued here). It's just not true, as was proven in the late 70s and early 80s when both had consistently good teams. If MU has good coaches, facilities, conference affiliation, etc., it will be a good program, regardless of what DePaul does. Marquette will create its own success or failure, not have it created for them by DePaul.
It might be less of an issue with Buzz's national recruiting now than it was in the past. However, it use to be that there were a limited number of good players that wanted to attend a small Catholic school. Generally, a Chicago player that would consider MU would also consider DePaul and vice versa. Losing Walter Downing to DePaul was a major loss for us. It was an even bigger loss to DePaul when he transferred to MU.
Quote from: Pakuni on April 04, 2010, 12:20:31 PM
1. Who said "they will never steal one from us?"
2. Even when they have "stolen one from us" (I forgot recruits were property who have to be stolen to go to other schools), it hasn't tipped the balance in their favor.
3. I'm not pulling for DePaul. Never said I was. Rather, I just don't believe that in order for MU to be good, DePaul must be bad (as has been argued here). It's just not true, as was proven in the late 70s and early 80s when both had consistently good teams. If MU has good coaches, facilities, conference affiliation, etc., it will be a good program, regardless of what DePaul does. Marquette will create its own success or failure, not have it created for them by DePaul.
Fine, so no one agrees with the author that depaul getting better would help mu.
One poster thinks it would definitely hurt us, so we shouldn't hope for them to improve.
You vehemently disagree with this, feeling that it may or may not hurt the program, And have facts from 40 years ago to prove it.
I think that if depaul gets better they will eventually get at least one key recruit that could have gone to us if they become a power program. I don't want this to happen so i hope that depaul flops on their next coach hire.
I think that is all we are going to get out of this thread.
DePaul bewilders me. They get a lot of good recruits, but can't put it together. They will be a bottom feeder, yet send guys to the NBA.....could they be a sleeping giant? Not until they get the coach, but the potential is clearly there.
Quote from: RawdogDX on April 04, 2010, 01:57:49 PM
Fine, so no one agrees with the author that depaul getting better would help mu.
One poster thinks it would definitely hurt us, so we shouldn't hope for them to improve.
You vehemently disagree with this, feeling that it may or may not hurt the program, And have facts from 40 years ago to prove it.
I think that if depaul gets better they will eventually get at least one key recruit that could have gone to us if they become a power program. I don't want this to happen so i hope that depaul flops on their next coach hire.
I think that is all we are going to get out of this thread.
Actually, I think DePaul getting better would have little to no impact on Marquette, other than create a some more challenging conference games.
It's funny .... MU and Wisconsin compete for recruits
far more than MU and DePaul. They compete far more for media attention. They compete for the same fan base. They compete, for all intents, in the same market. They play head-to-head nearly as often, in a game that garners much more interest from fans and media, both locally and nationally.
And yet I don't recall anyone here arguing that for Marquette to succeed, it needs Wisconsin to be bad.
One would think that using the same criteria that's applied to DePaul in this discussion, the argument for the necessity of Wisconsin's failure would be even greater.
A stronger Depaul team would make it more difficult for MU to recruit the Chicago area and I don't think any one can really dispute that. Can Buzz go recruit elsewhere? Yes. Has he? Yes but the coaching staff has made a big push to go after the 2011 Chicago talent.
I am all for Depaul continuing to suck for a long, long time.
Quote from: mufanatic on April 04, 2010, 03:41:37 PM
A stronger Depaul team would make it more difficult for MU to recruit the Chicago area and I don't think any one can really dispute that. Can Buzz go recruit elsewhere? Yes. Has he? Yes but the coaching staff has made a big push to go after the 2011 Chicago talent.
I am all for Depaul continuing to suck for a long, long time.
Absolutely. I know it's a zillion years ago now, but I recall MU going steadily downhill after Al retired and DePaul suddenly became a top program with virtually all Chicago area star players. Hank got one blue chipper --Doc Rivers-- and nothing else. Ray Meyer became a "great" coach just as soon as Al went into broadcasting. A good DePaul is bad for Marquette...always has been, always will be.
Quote from: mufanatic on April 04, 2010, 03:41:37 PM
I am all for Depaul continuing to suck for a long, long time.
LOL. It will probably happen!
Quote from: Pakuni on April 04, 2010, 02:59:24 PM
Actually, I think DePaul getting better would have little to no impact on Marquette, other than create a some more challenging conference games.
It's funny .... MU and Wisconsin compete for recruits far more than MU and DePaul. They compete far more for media attention. They compete for the same fan base. They compete, for all intents, in the same market. They play head-to-head nearly as often, in a game that garners much more interest from fans and media, both locally and nationally.
And yet I don't recall anyone here arguing that for Marquette to succeed, it needs Wisconsin to be bad.
One would think that using the same criteria that's applied to DePaul in this discussion, the argument for the necessity of Wisconsin's failure would be even greater.
Pakuni, I posted this above (repeated below)
In the early 80s when I was at MU, Wisconsin was truly awful (Cofield/Yoder years). from 1977 to 1987 the Badgers finished no better than 8th in the Big Ten (last three times in that stretch). The Badgers went from 1947 to 1994 without an NCAA appearance.
It was argued that the state of Wisconsin could not support two ranked programs and if Wisconsin ever resurged, MU would fall off.
We know that is not true.
It's not a zero sum game. As was mentioned before, Duke and UNC coexist.
I would argue that Depaul resurging is good for us and good for the Big East. The loser is Illinois and IU. Recruits will think about the "Midwest big east schools."
Koshwal would have been absolutely huge on our team the last 4 years.
Why would a resurgent DePaul be good for MU? Instead of looking at recruitment, look at strength of schedule. If we continue to play them twice a year then our wins will be decent one, and if we lose they won't be considered "bad losses". Of course, that only holds if they become middle of the pack and we don't keep up, creating potentially 2 losses each year to our record.
Figure I'd give a different perspective :)
A strong DePaul is a bad thing for MU in every way.
Quote from: DawsonCreekFillanderer on April 04, 2010, 07:49:04 PM
A strong DePaul is a bad thing for MU in every way.
I guess I disagree with you in most ways.
Helping our strength of schedule is a BIG plus.
Creating more interest in the Big East in the Midwest, a definite plus.
Losing the occasional recruiting battle, not so good, but hey, anything worth having is going to cost
something.