I was just thinking about how bad Marquette was after losing at Georgetown and at Syracuse. According to Pomeroy (and most pundits), we lost to the two best teams in the Big East on their own courts by a combined 10 points and many of the people here were up in arms. Sure, we should have held on against GTown, and we could have shown up for the first half against Syracuse, but bottom line, at the end of the game we played two very good teams very close.
But as much as we overreacted to those losses, we are also overreacting to this win. Guys, this isn't the 2010-11 St. John's team we just pasted in our own building. This is a bad team that only goes 7 players deep and had their leading scorer foul out with over 10 minutes to play. And St. John's, according to Pomeroy, is the second worst team in the Big East. We should handle Pittsburgh, another Big East bottom-feeder, fairly easily on Saturday. Does that make us a top-ten team again? No, probably not.
The games against Louisville, Seton Hall, Notre Dame, Cincy, and UConn will go a lot further to tell us how good this team is than beating a bad St. John's team will. Just as we shouldn't let two losses to top-ten teams on the road bring us down to the dumps, shouldn't let wins against teams that aren't much better than the cupcakes we scheduled in November send us up to the heavens.
The real question is at half time did we just watch MU's best half or worse half as MU plays to totally different halves these days.
Georegtown-1st half best
Syracuse-1st half worse
St John's -1st half worse
Brew .. Um, yeah. That's what we do around here.
And then someone comes along and tells the board they are overreacting.
Check, and check.
Quote from: brewcity77 on January 12, 2012, 07:53:51 AM
I was just thinking about how bad Marquette was after losing at Georgetown and at Syracuse. According to Pomeroy (and most pundits), we lost to the two best teams in the Big East on their own courts by a combined 10 points and many of the people here were up in arms. Sure, we should have held on against GTown, and we could have shown up for the first half against Syracuse, but bottom line, at the end of the game we played two very good teams very close.
But as much as we overreacted to those losses, we are also overreacting to this win. Guys, this isn't the 2010-11 St. John's team we just pasted in our own building. This is a bad team that only goes 7 players deep and had their leading scorer foul out with over 10 minutes to play. And St. John's, according to Pomeroy, is the second worst team in the Big East. We should handle Pittsburgh, another Big East bottom-feeder, fairly easily on Saturday. Does that make us a top-ten team again? No, probably not.
The games against Louisville, Seton Hall, Notre Dame, Cincy, and UConn will go a lot further to tell us how good this team is than beating a bad St. John's team will. Just as we shouldn't let two losses to top-ten teams on the road bring us down to the dumps, shouldn't let wins against teams that aren't much better than the cupcakes we scheduled in November send us up to the heavens.
I think St. Johns is pretty good and they're only going to get better with each passing game given their youth. I'm sure Cincy would disagree with the Pomeroy rankings. Not a lot of teams go into Cincy and win. Also, St. Johns wasn't the same team with Harrison fouling out (a couple more deep shots from him totally changes the complexion of the game). We stepped up the pressure on the defensive end in the second half and forced turnovers and bad shots leading to a buttload of transition points. The Johnnies are going to learn to better handle the pressure (especially with Harrison playing an entire second half) and beat some pretty good teams this year. It was a good win for MU last night (quality win? TBD).
We're seeing that pretty much everyone after Syracuse in the Big East can compete with anyone else on a given night, but it's not just that St. John's lost to a vastly overrated Detroit team on the road, but that they lost to Texas A&M and freaking Northeastern at HOME. Those are bad, bad losses. Sure, they beat Cincy...that makes them 1-5 against top-50 opposition. Bottom line, if you have high-major players, you'll beat decent teams every once in awhile. That doesn't make you good, that just means you had a really good night and they had a really bad night. It happens.
St. John's will be better in a year, and really good in two. Right now, they are a bad team without the requisite experience or depth to compete at this level on a regular basis.
Quote from: bilsu on January 12, 2012, 07:57:20 AM
The real question is at half time did we just watch MU's best half or worse half as MU plays two totally diffeent halves these days.
Georegtown-1st half best
Syracuse-1st half worse
St John's -1st half worse
Could not agree more here. But I think it's more like a 1/4 of the game is really bad for us. The last 10 minutes of the Georgetown game killed the whole thing. The last 10 minutes of the first half against Syracuse were really ugly but we otherwise hung with them the first half and outplayed them the second half. SJU last night - really lazy ten minutes from the 5 minute to 15 minute mark in the first half, came out looking completely different the second half.
I still think losing Otule changed the course of the season for us - I think everything they worked on in the off-season revolved around having Otule doing his work in the paint and they had to completely regroup after that. But I am starting to feel hopeful that they have bounced back, and faster than I thought they would or could. Hopefully the bad 10 minutes goes down to 8 bad minutes to 5 bad minutes to a complete 40 minute game. Still early in the season, I think this team can gel long before March.
Northwestern is not a bad team. Took a top 20 Michigan team into overtime on the road last night before losing by 2.
All things considered, MU's first half last night wasn't all that bad. Sure, they were down 1 at half but DJO and Crowder played a combined 20 minutes because of foul trouble and scored just 6 points. Anderson, Jamail and DWil played 14 minutes combined in the half after playing 15 total in the previous 2 games. Despite that, MU shot a respectable 12-28 from the floor and was +6 on rebounds. When the fouls were mounting up, Buzz's strategy appeared to be - keep it close at half and come out guns a-blazing in the second half.
It also helped that Gardner was on his way to a career night ;)
Quote from: MuMark on January 12, 2012, 10:51:51 AM
Northwestern is not a bad team. Took a top 20 Michigan team into overtime on the road last night before losing by 2.
True, but Northeastern is pretty bad, and they beat St. John's
my bad.....I obviously misread his post.
I think it is an overall frustration moreso than an overreaction. I think many on this board probably watch as much basketball as I have. I can't help but compare the good teams out there with ours as with the good players out there with our players. MU has the potiential to be a really good team. I believe a top 10 team all season long. The only thing stopping us is the inconsistency which is driven really by bad decisions.
So like Blue. I don't think he is terrible. I just think if he shored up some things, he would be so much more effective. There were two offensive possessions in a row where he really looked great. He finished with his left and then drove and had a great pass. But then there were a couple more plays down the stretch where he didn't finish on an easy play or he would force the pass in a crowded area. There was once instance too that he dumped the ball to Mayo when he was behind the basket surrounded by defenders and Mayo (I don't know how) was able to put the ball up and finish. That is not smart decision putting a shorter guard with the ball behind the basket with a ton of bigs around. More often then not, that pass will result in a TO, blocked shot, or Mayo dribbling it back out.
Same deal with Crowder. The guy had 4 steals and 2 blocks (I think). He played pretty solid defense. But then you see a fast break, he is two steps behind a player that is about to dunk and he has no chance to do anything but he reaches in and the ref decides that is a foul. That was a terrible decision. You have to play smarter than that.
That's my take. If we played smarter down the stretch against Georgetown, we would have easily won. And it's that type of play that is preventing us from being a team I think we can be.
Is it overreaction the other way when we have posters here saying our bench players could create their own team and finish ahead of some teams in the Big East? Is it overreaction when some guys here are printing up Final Four tickets?
Somewhere in between is where we are at. We aren't a top 10 team. We aren't going to the NIT. We are a good team that can be very good at times and not so great at times. Consistency, especially in games, is not yet our strong suit. We have some wins against teams that turns out aren't as good as advertised (Wisconsin, Washington, Villanova) and we have some losses (or near losses) to teams that have been inconsistent as well (LSU, Vanderbilt, Norfolk State). Even the Georgetown game, how good are they? They've lost two in a row and the two games prior to that they could have (should have) lost to us and potentially Providence. G'Town not exactly playing their best ball right now.
We're a good team, moments of very good and moments of not so good. Need consistency for 40 minutes, which we haven't put together this year against a quality opponent with the possible exception of Wisconsin (if we still consider them to be a quality opponent with an RPI in the 60's)