MUScoop

first, I loooove the scholarship table.

http://www.muscoop.com/index.php?page=8

Not to look too far out and detract too much from the usual BS, but I was looking at the scholarship table a few minutes ago and realized that the team next year could be really good.  Realistically, next year should be The Leap.  

Two of the top ten players in the league (DJO, Crowder)
Premium transfer-in (Wilson)
Vander as a sophomore; Otule as a junior
Not to mention any contributions from Cadougan, EWill, Gardner, Jamail, Juan, or Derrick Wilson.

How good do you think Marquette will be next year?

We will have experience, balance, and depth at all positions (well, except for back-up PG), that's for sure.  I really think Jamil will step right into Butler's role.  I think the three critical players for next year will be Cadougan, Blue, and Gardner.  All have shown great flashes, combined with real clunker moments, this season.  All of them will have to improve--Cadougan and Blue with their shooting, and Gardner with his conditioning and defense.
As the wild card "surprise performer" for next year, my vote will go with Jamail Jones, with Derrick Wilson a close second.   

We all believe that Jamil takes JFB's spot.  I think we then have three questions.

Who takes DB's spot in the guard rotation?  Jamail?

Who backs up Junior at PG?  Blue?  Or does DWill get minutes?

And finally, who plays the Fulce role off the bench?  My hope is that EWill will step up, but it could very likely be a Juan Anderson or a JUCO-to-be-named-later.

I really like eric williams. I think he's going to be imperative to our success as soon as he steps up and I think he will be our best rebounder his last 2 years here. I really think it will click eventually and he'll be great.

Sweet 16 or bust. 

I wish I could share Jeffreyweee's optimism about Erik but I can't. While he has maybe the best mid-range shot of anyone on the team, he also seems to have the shortest leash. Erik doesn't have the footwork to defend on the perimeter or the bulk to play the post and aside from a great rebounding job versus a bunny earlier this year, doesn't have a nose for the ball. Wouldn't at all be surprised if he transferred.

PG is my biggest concern.

Agree. Of the starting 5, that's my #1 concern. Not sold at all on Junior's game.

The talent will be there.   But, Henry, I thought your numbers showed that if they can't play defense it doesn't matter.    I am not expecting much from the two freshmen.   Anything will be a gift.   So with a three guard rotation of DJO, Blue, and Cadouan, Blue has to learn to play some point.   JJ could be the 4th guard.   Up front, CO and DG will be a year better.    That leaves EWill, Jae, and Jamil and sometimes JJ to rotate between the the two forward slots.   More experience within the system than we had to start this year.    I think we could be very dangerous.  

Quote from: ChicosBailBonds on January 18, 2011, 01:07:37 PM
PG is my biggest concern.

In 94 minutes of BEast play, Junior has 17 assists and 5 turnovers.   I will take that ratio any time.   If he can shoot just enough, he will be fine. 

Quote from: tower912 on January 18, 2011, 01:13:08 PM
In 94 minutes of BEast play, Junior has 17 assists and 5 turnovers.   I will take that ratio any time.   If he can shoot just enough, he will be fine. 

It's a very nice Assist to Turnover ratio.  I haven't seen the stats so if someone has them, please provide....how do we do when he's in there in terms of scoring, tempo, +/-, etc.

Not sure what it is, but when watching him there just seems to be something missing.  It could totally be a faux impression, but we seem more stagnant, we seem to lack some explosiveness and we appear to be less confident, especially in pressure ball situations.  Now, it may be all those views are completely bunk and the stats bear it out, I'm not sure. 

I would be happier if MU recruited the best JC point to come in?  Is MU on any
points right now?  Or Junior has to improve his shooting.

Chico, check one Henry's posts from yesterday about a detailed statistical analysis and IIRC it will show that Junior was one of the few guys who had a plus rating for the game.  
http://hoyaprospectus.blogspot.com/2011/01/be-game-of-day-louisville-71-marquette.html

Edit:   Here it is. 

I thought Jr played his best game as a Warrior on Sat, and showed the most offensively to date.  He looked much more confident and decisive thnt he had at any other point that I can remember.  I would not be surprised to see his offensive production start to increase.

I like what I see in JC as well. He just needs to work on his shot (relax!) and his free throws.

Quote from: BCHoopster on January 18, 2011, 01:34:55 PM
I would be happier if MU recruited the best JC point to come in?  Is MU on any
points right now?  Or Junior has to improve his shooting.

We have a pg in the next class.  
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/54699/derrick-wilson

I don't think we want a two year player at the point with how we are set up now.


How about juan anderson at point forward?... onlly semi-teal.  Dude's got skills.

Really, really, really good!!!! Think Elite 8

Quote from: tower912 on January 18, 2011, 01:37:06 PM
Chico, check one Henry's posts from yesterday about a detailed statistical analysis and IIRC it will show that Junior was one of the few guys who had a plus rating for the game.  
http://hoyaprospectus.blogspot.com/2011/01/be-game-of-day-louisville-71-marquette.html

Edit:   Here it is.  

Wow...he had the highest defensive rating of anyone on the team?

(Modify:  Nevermind...forgot it was a negative statistic.)

Quote from: BCHoopster on January 18, 2011, 01:34:55 PM
I would be happier if MU recruited the best JC point to come in?  Is MU on any
points right now?  Or Junior has to improve his shooting.

Johnnie Lacy!!!  (Just kidding....)

Junior's plus/minus was zero vs. Louisville.

Quote from: RawdogDX on January 18, 2011, 01:53:40 PM
We have a pg in the next class.  
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/54699/derrick-wilson

I don't think we want a two year player at the point with how we are set up now.


How about juan anderson at point forward?... onlly semi-teal.  Dude's got skills.

Worries me that they're calling Wilson more of a combo guard than a true point. Reggie Smith without the hops?

Totally agree on Anderson. Great court vision and passing skills.

Quote from: tower912 on January 18, 2011, 01:37:06 PM
Chico, check one Henry's posts from yesterday about a detailed statistical analysis and IIRC it will show that Junior was one of the few guys who had a plus rating for the game.  
http://hoyaprospectus.blogspot.com/2011/01/be-game-of-day-louisville-71-marquette.html

Edit:   Here it is. 

Thank you.  Do these stats exist for the entire season by individual?  I'm curious.

Quote from: ChicosBailBonds on January 18, 2011, 02:12:36 PM
Thank you.  Do these stats exist for the entire season by individual?  I'm curious.

I can generate them.  However, the best way to do it is to generate the net points on a game by game basis.  That way you can see which players are trending positively or negatively.

For example, I ran the cumulative stats after the Vanderbilt game and Junior was easily the least productive member of the team (something like negative 22 net points).  So an entire season's games at this point wouldn't tell you that Junior has been trending positively (this may or may not be the case) in the last few weeks.

Problem is that doing the game by game stats is a manual process so I'd need to go run the stats for ~20 games.

Quote from: Henry Sugar on January 18, 2011, 02:21:06 PM

Problem is that doing the game by game stats is a manual process so I'd need to go run the stats for ~20 games.

That's OK - you've got plenty of time!  It won't take too long.  What source(s) do you generally use in this manual process?

Will look too clunky if cut and pasted. Here's the link to Junior's game-by-game plus/minus.

http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/player/marquette/junior-cadougan/plus_minus

Pomeroy is not a fan of plus/minus when it comes to college basketball.

http://kenpom.com/blog/

Conference Play only.  the numbers after each player are (Usage, Offensive Rating, Defensive Rating, Net Points Produced)

Johnson-Odom, Darius   (22.8%, 117.3, 110.1, 17.3)
Crowder, Jae (17.0%, 125.4, 105.0,   13.4)
Butler, Jimmy (18.5%, 125.6, 106.6, 11.4)
Buycks, Dwight (13.2%, 123.9, 110.3, 4.5)
Fulce, Joseph (3.9%, 125.7, 104.0,   2.0)
Frozena, Robert (0.0%, 0.0, 117.1,    -0.2)
Williams, Erik (0.2%, 0.0, 114.6, -0.9)
Jones, Jamail (0.2%, 0.0, 117.1, -1.0)
Gardner, Dwight (1.8%, 45.2, 114.0, -4.7)
Otule, Chris   (7.4%, 85.9, 107.2, -7.8)
Cadougan, Junior   (6.4%, 96.0, 111.1, -8.8)
Blue, Vander (8.4%, 80.5, 109.6, -10.4)

It's sorted from top to bottom on net points produced.  Take with a grain of salt.  Again, it's better to go game by game, but that's manual data entry into a spreadsheet.

Hopefully Wilson can take Butler's spot.

Junior needs to improve his shot and especially his free throw shooting (44%).  You can't have a PG with those current stats.  

Otule, well lets hope something improves.

I don't see anything different than this year and they need someone to step up and makeup the points provided by Butler and Buycks.  

I can't even tell how good we are this year, let alone predict on next year.

We'll spend 10 minutes playing solid d, grinding out good leads, then there are some minutes/games where we look DII level bad on D.  I'm not sure what to think of buzz and the crew.

I think it's all up in the air, much as it was with this team. If JFB and DJO improve moderately this year, they are the two conference top ten players that we'd hope DJO and Crowder to be next year. Getting the NJCAA national player of the year covers the premium transfer in. Cadougan as a sophomore, Otule and Buycks ready to contribute, and an impact freshman in Blue. If we play a bit smarter, we could be 16-2 right now, ranked in the top 15, and we'd be talking about a potential 2-3 seed.

What makes next year different? We again are losing 3 key seniors. Can Wilson fill Butler's shoes? Can Williams or Anderson provide the spark of Fulce off the bench? Can anyone take over the point for Buycks? Even if the answer to all if those questions is yes, will the key returning players learn from this year's failures against Gonzaga, Vandy, and Louisville? If the answer is yes, we could be a potential top 10 team. If the answer is no, we're having the same heart-wrenching issues next January.

We had the same lessons to learn last year. How to win close games. How to protect a lead. How to string wins together in tough situations. And for the short-term we learned them, but for the long term (this season) it seems the lessons of a year ago were wasted. If we can learn those lessons by the end of this year and carry it over, we'll be in great shape. If not...well, you all know what it's like around here now.

Quote from: Stone Cold on January 18, 2011, 03:16:14 PM
I can't even tell how good we are this year, let alone predict on next year.

We'll spend 10 minutes playing solid d, grinding out good leads, then there are some minutes/games where we look DII level bad on D.  I'm not sure what to think of buzz and the crew.

My thoughts as well.  That said, I voted for NCAA 2nd Round but believe they could do better depending on the seeding, the draw, location, etc....but that's so far down the road, who knows.

I voted Final Four because why the hell not?

As others have said, let's finish up this season and then start the ridiculous predictions for next year.

I had 2nd round.  I sense that most people are too optimistic about the future and too pessimistic about the present.  Definitely saw that in 2010, and to a certain extent again this year.

The challenge I see is twofold.

1.  Everyone else in the league is getting better at a potentially faster pace.  Syracuse continues to land outstanding talent with two top-25 RSCI recruits.  Pitt has always been well coached.  Louisville has some studs coming in.  We all know about St. Johns incoming class.  UConn is perennially talent-deep.  Villanova has outstanding talent. The danger is that we'll be a really really good, but still finish 5th or 6th in the Big East, wind up with a 6 or 7 seed--fair or not--and have to face a 2 or 3 seed/top 10 team in the 2nd round.

2.  We have either unknowns to replace the minutes that Butler and Buycks give us, or are counting on players to be completely different than they are now.  Cadougan will have to be much improved next year or we're not a Sweet 16 team.  If Erik Williams is counted on to take some of Butler's mintues, he's going to have to be a completely different player than what we've seen.  Jamil Wilson is somewhat unknown--but he has to give us a lot more than what he showed at Oregon to rise to what Butler is giving us this year--for example, Butler has been around 130 on his offiensive rating since his sophomore year.  Wilson was around 100 as a frosh.  

I expect Cadougan to make a big leap next year as our starting point guard.  I don't see many problems there.  My concern would be the backup point situation, especially if Cadougan got injured.

Cadougan, Blue, and Gardner will make huge leaps next year is my guess, and that will make for a very good team (assuming no major injuries).

To someone's point earlier, along with backup PG, would be nice to recruit a Fulce type rebounder for next year.  We need a PF who can d-up and board.