MUScoop
MUScoop => Hangin' at the Al => Topic started by: HowardsWorld on November 23, 2019, 03:11:41 PM
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There is no denying this game was ugly. Not sure why howard didnt shoot in the 1st half. Anyways we won and are moving on. Onto Davidson to erase this game from our memory. Keep in mind this was only the 4th game of the year. Stuff is going to happen. If you need examples of bad games look at kentucky as home. Lost to some directional school and eeked out another.
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In last 3 games one good half.
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Well that’s one way to put it. After watching this game, would anyone not trade Wojo for the Robert Morris coach?
He may be getting recruits, but could a coach underachieve any more with this much talent. As goose says, he is way over his head as a coach.
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Umm, not sure I agree this time. This "win" feels ominous
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didn't watch game, was there an injury?
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In last 3 games one good half.
And 2 wins.
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didn't watch game, was there an injury?
Just to our collective pride
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There is no denying this game was ugly. Not sure why howard didnt shoot in the 1st half. Anyways we won and are moving on. Onto Davidson to erase this game from our memory. Keep in mind this was only the 4th game of the year. Stuff is going to happen. If you need examples of bad games look at kentucky as home. Lost to some directional school and eeked out another.
This 🖕
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Rough, rough, rough game. Played intimidated and scared for the last ten minutes. Huge credit to Robert Morris and Andy O'Toole - this team, which was 1-5, played like a 5-1 team today, and continually got good looks for their star players, not to mention being very disciplined in their match-up zone and perimeter defense.
I hope (and anticipate) this was simply a trap game that our guys slept walked through. However, other than Howard, there is simply no one you can trust to score a basket. Additionally, the turnovers remain a huge red flag.
The team better figure this out quick, as Davidson is - arguably - the most important OOC game we have (since it depends who we play later on in Orlando).
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Well that’s one way to put it. After watching this game, would anyone not trade Wojo for the Robert Morris coach?
He may be getting recruits, but could a coach underachieve any more with this much talent. As goose says, he is way over his head as a coach.
Yeah I wouldn’t trade Wojo for the Robert Morris coach. Lol.
But hey maybe Purdue would give us Painter for Wojo?
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Pretty sure Howard got a directive from Wojo not to shoot and I agree with that approach. If these other dudes are gonna learn how to score it’s best to do it against teams like this. The result however wasn’t inspiring.
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Speaking by this slug team by 4 points, unacceptable. DePaul cant wait to their hands on Wojos coaching the team.
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didn't watch game, was there an injury?
Only to our eyesight.
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Pretty sure Howard got a directive from Wojo not to shoot and I agree with that approach. If these other dudes are gonna learn how to score it’s best to do it against teams like this. The result however wasn’t inspiring.
Yes this is exactly what I think happened. Hopefully something was learned from that mess though.
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Pretty sure Howard got a directive from Wojo not to shoot and I agree with that approach. If these other dudes are gonna learn how to score it’s best to do it against teams like this. The result however wasn’t inspiring.
It’s not so they can learn how to score. The team doesn’t like playing with him and it was Wojo’s way of teaching some kind of lesson.
This season is going to be a train wreck the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long, long time.
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It’s not so they can learn how to score. The team doesn’t like playing with him and it was Wojo’s way of teaching some kind of lesson.
Lol...what?
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It’s not so they can learn how to score. The team doesn’t like playing with him and it was Wojo’s way of teaching some kind of
#LIES
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Lol...what?
No kidding. This must be the underboard narrative.
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And 2 wins.
Silly. If we get a sense of success based on beating a cupcake like this our expectations must be rather low. Seriously this team has more talent than they are showing. There is clearly something missing in the coaching. I hope the staff gets their act together soon.
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Silly. If we get a sense of success based on beating a cupcake like this our expectations must be rather low. Seriously this team has more talent than they are showing. There is clearly something missing in the coaching. I hope the staff gets their act together soon.
I don’t think we’re as talented as you think. But yeah I don’t think Wojo is going to coach them to be better than their talent.
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Silly. If we get a sense of success based on beating a cupcake like this our expectations must be rather low. Seriously this team has more talent than they are showing. There is clearly something missing in the coaching. I hope the staff gets their act together soon.
Absolutely this team has more talent. Davidson is no where near where we were hoping they would be when we played them next week. They are 2-3 and we should honestly blow them out as a team. I don't see that happening and expect a close win followed by a win over USC. Anything other than a match up with Maryland or in the championship game is Maryland loses prior is a huge disappointment and shows the direct the team is heading. You can write the Badgers loss of as good defense by them and good 3 point shooting but if they come out poor again that will have been 4 straight games an most likely how the team will be moving forward.
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Silly. If we get a sense of success based on beating a cupcake like this our expectations must be rather low. Seriously this team has more talent than they are showing. There is clearly something missing in the coaching. I hope the staff gets their act together soon.
In our last 3 games we’ve played 2 upper half Big Ten teams. According to you we’ve played a total of 1 good half in those 3 games. We won 2 of those games. You can call it silly. I call it a fact.
It’s not so they can learn how to score. The team doesn’t like playing with him and it was Wojo’s way of teaching some kind of lesson.
This season is going to be a train wreck the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long, long time.
LOL! So all the kids who hate playing with Markus decided to stay and play with Markus even though they were willing to leave had a couple letter writers stuck around? That makes sense. And Wojo is just sticking it to the other players on the team by not letting Markus shoot?
Wow. For as dumb of stuff as I’ve seen thrown around here this takes the cake.
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Alot of talk about talent lately. Do people forget this was the season we were looking forward to for 3-4 years as the team that could finally have a shot at a final 4. Obviously the loss of Sam Hauser was big. Joey Hauser wasn't even part of the plan to make the final 4 at that point. This team still has talent but coaching needs to get it together. Honestly I don't know how you can look elsewhere when he is getting 4-5 star recruits and cannot get a tourny win.
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In our last 3 games we’ve played 2 upper half Big Ten teams. According to you we’ve played a total of 1 good half in those 3 games. We won 2 of those games. You can call it silly. I call it a fact.
LOL! So all the kids who hate playing with Markus decided to stay and play with Markus even though they were willing to leave had a couple letter writers stuck around? That makes sense. And Wojo is just sticking it to the other players on the team by not letting Markus shoot?
Wow. For as dumb of stuff as I’ve seen thrown around here this takes the cake.
I would say you have low expectations but given the recent history maybe not.
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Alot of talk about talent lately. Do people forget this was the season we were looking forward to for 3-4 years as the team that could finally have a shot at a final 4. Obviously the loss of Sam Hauser was big. Joey Hauser wasn't even part of the plan to make the final 4 at that point. This team still has talent but coaching needs to get it together. Honestly I don't know how you can look elsewhere when he is getting 4-5 star recruits and cannot get a tourny win.
Who are the four and five star recruits on this team?
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It’s not so they can learn how to score. The team doesn’t like playing with him and it was Wojo’s way of teaching some kind of lesson.
Source? Besides your tush?
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Who are the four and five star recruits on this team?
None currently but you have had in the last 4 years.
5 Star- Ellenson
4 Star - Sam Hauser
4-Star Joey Hauser
4-Star Sandy Cohen
4-Star Haniff Cheatham
And that does not include Makus Howard all american.
Obviously these guys did not all play on the same roster but my point is that you cannot somehow get 1 single tournament win with a combination of these guys. Give me a break thats 100% on the coach.
People can only blame Buzz for destorying the program for so many years. This is year 6 and I fully believe the only reason he is still the coach is because they dont want a full decade of rebuiding.
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Besides your tush?
Thanks
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It’s not so they can learn how to score. The team doesn’t like playing with him and it was Wojo’s way of teaching some kind of lesson.
This season is going to be a train wreck the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long, long time.
If you have inside info to back this up please send me a PM
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None currently but you have had in the last 4 years.
5 Star- Ellenson
4 Star - Sam Hauser
4-Star Joey Hauser
4-Star Sandy Cohen
4-Star Haniff Cheatham
And that does not include Makus Howard all american.
Obviously these guys did not all play on the same roster but my point is that you cannot somehow get 1 single tournament win with a combination of these guys. Give me a break thats 100% on the coach.
People can only blame Buzz for destorying the program for so many years. This is year 6 and I fully believe the only reason he is still the coach is because they dont want a full decade of rebuiding.
Didn’t all those guys leave under a cloud?
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None currently
Exactly. I’m not excusing Wojo here but this team doesn’t have a bunch of talent. It has one high level player.
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Well, this particular Win dropped Marquette 9 spots in kenpom - from 20->29
I'll take the W, but hope the team plays better in Orlando.
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Exactly
Thats exactly my point. Coach.
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Thats exactly my point. Coach.
Oh. So Coach got us a win. Cool.
On to the next one.
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It’s not so they can learn how to score. The team doesn’t like playing with him and it was Wojo’s way of teaching some kind of lesson.
This season is going to be a train wreck the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long, long time.
Slow clap. Very funny
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Speaking by this slug team by 4 points, unacceptable. DePaul cant wait to their hands on Wojos coaching the team.
Kind of like your effort on this post. Mistake-prone posts are unacceptable...
Where is your grammatical pride? Those 1960s era HS English teachers refuse to accept this garbage, right?
Wrong, there is no “unacceptable” result. There is either careless and sloppy play/posting or solid execution.
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Exactly. I’m not excusing Wojo here but this team doesn’t have a bunch of talent. It has one high level player.
I agree, though I have read on Scoop that a) Koby is "at least" a 2nd team All Big East player, b) Greg and Jamal are "great", c) Next year Theo will be an "absolute stud", d) Sacar will play in the NBA and d) Brendan Bailey will be a Marquette "all timer".
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this coulda been our "evansville" but man, we don't have much room for error. gotta clean up the turnovers, the defense took a step back and the shooting was atrocious. some of our passes were like trying to shove a square ball thru a round hole. but the play says i've got to pass it to...cheezus man, plan "b" plan "c" but don't give it up!! i'd rather see em chuck it up there behind their back than throwing it away.
we just didn't look like we wanted to be here today. better get this chit outta our system or it's gonna be a longer, colder winter. but i guess it's better to play bad and win than play good and lose
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Lenny
Last year was fool’s gold and this year is a one trick pony.
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I agree, though I have read on Scoop that a) Koby is "at least" a 2nd team All Big East player, b) Greg and Jamal are "great", c) Next year Theo will be an "absolute stud", d) Sacar will play in the NBA and d) Brendan Bailey will be a Marquette "all timer".
There’s a reason we ain’t coaches.
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Bailey was the silver lining today. Otherwise ugly.
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Take the win, but it would be disingenuous to the overall body of work to suggest that this doesn't feel a lot like foreshadowing...
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Lenny
Last year was fool’s gold and this year is a one trick pony.
Bingo. Mediocrity as far as the eye can see.
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When I said the rest of the guys on this team were Deane-level players, I wasn’t talking about John Polonowski or Bart Miller. Jon Harris, John Cliff, Oluoma Nnamaka, Jarrod Lovette, David Diggs? They’d be right at home on this team.
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I believe this is the 5th straight game that Jamal has an airball 3. Brutal.
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Take the win, but it would be disingenuous to the overall body of work to suggest that this doesn't feel a lot like foreshadowing...
I know we can’t always expect this, but something tells me that right when the darkness will be seemingly creeping in Mr Howard will take over and save the day.
Last season in Brooklyn after a debacle in the 2H against Kansas and with about 5 mins to play versus Louisville the team looked down and out. Then MARKUS happened and MU won in OT, Stan gave him a massive hug after the game and we know how the next few months went.
Sadly the ending was a disaster, but until I see otherwise I won’t believe that Markus as a senior will let this team fall apart, assuming they don’t all turn on each other like the end of last yr (coaches responsibility here).
That said, hate to bring up harsh memories as I pour my first scotch, but I can’t help but think how differently things could’ve been had MU held on to the under 4 lead v Nova to clinch the conference title last year.
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When I said the rest of the guys on this team were Deane-level players, I wasn’t talking about John Polonowski or Bart Miller. Jon Harris, John Cliff, Oluoma Nnamaka, Jarrod Lovette, David Diggs? They’d be right at home on this team.
Early on in the Wojo era, I posted a poll asking whether he would have a better record than Mike Deane. I posted it again mid way through Wojos tenure. Now we know the results, Deane had a better overall record 100-55 to Wojo to Wojo 97-69. I have been saying for some time that Wojo is basically at the Deane level in terms of post Al coaches at MU. Yes, I know Wojo is a better recruiter, but Deane was a better coach. Net result is the same. Cords had the common sense to send Deane packing . If mediocrity is accepted it becomes the standard.
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Early on in the Wojo era, I posted a poll asking whether he would have a better record than Mike Deane. I posted it again mid way through Wojos tenure. Now we know the results, Deane had a better overall record 100-55 to Wojo to Wojo 97-69. I have been saying for some time that Wojo is basically at the Deane level in terms of post Al coaches at MU. Yes, I know Wojo is a better recruiter, but Deane was a better coach. Net result is the same. Cords had the common sense to send Deane packing . If mediocrity is accepted it becomes the standard.
However, Deane had the benefit of the carryover of O’Neill talent. Whereas, Wojo was downtrodden by the lack of carryover from Buzz.
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Early on in the Wojo era, I posted a poll asking whether he would have a better record than Mike Deane. I posted it again mid way through Wojos tenure. Now we know the results, Deane had a better overall record 100-55 to Wojo to Wojo 97-69. I have been saying for some time that Wojo is basically at the Deane level in terms of post Al coaches at MU. Yes, I know Wojo is a better recruiter, but Deane was a better coach. Net result is the same. Cords had the common sense to send Deane packing . If mediocrity is accepted it becomes the standard.
Deane’s 5 year record:
21-12
23-8
22-9
20-11
14-15
Said you can’t recruit at Marquette and we should be fine with an occasional NCAA tourney appearance.
Wojo’s 5 year record:
13-19
20-13
19-13
21-14
24-10
Just signed a 5* recruit and has the current top 10 recruiting class in the country.
If you want to look at an overall record, go ahead. If you are unable to see the difference, I can’t help you.
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However, Deane had the benefit of the carryover of O’Neill talent. Whereas, Wojo was downtrodden by the lack of carryover from Buzz.
Query: can someone with more energy than me list and compare the players Wojo inherited with the players Deane inherited?
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Query: can someone with more energy than me list and compare the players Wojo inherited with the players Deane inherited?
Deane inherited Eford, Peiper, McCaskill, Crawford, Tony Miller and Hutch.
Wojo inherited some talent, but not like Deane.
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Query: If Wojo had to do a 2-3 year rebuild because Buzz left him a squad of bad players, then why do we always assume any coach after Wojo would have to deal with a 2-3 year rebuild as well?
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The reason for the frequent turnovers and poor shooting (4 3s made) is that everyone outside of MH is simply a role/bench player. I watched the UW-UWGB game, and everyone on UW's main guys was better than MU's main guys. Really discouraging. Frankly, if it wasn't for the Dawson commitment, the chatter about Wojo would become a lot noisier.
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As I watched this game, it reminded me of the OT win vs IUPUI in Wojo's second year and of the OT win vs Eastern Illinois a couple years later. Both of those teams were just good enough to not be good enough to make the tourney.
Not giving up on this season yet by any stretch of the imagination. That's just the feeling I got.
Here's hoping it was more like the unimpressive win over one of the directional Louisiana schools in 2012-13 (and the loss to UWGB shortly thereafter). That season turned out OK!
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Query: can someone with more energy than me list and compare the players Wojo inherited with the players Deane inherited?
I'm including the rsci rankings of the players Wojo inherited, not Deane's (rsci doesn't go back that far)
Deane: Wojo:
Eford Du Wilson 59
Pieper Fischer 71
T Miller Anderson 81
McCaskill JJJ 30
Crawford Taylor 82
Hutchins Cohen 75
Abraham Burton 54
Joseph De Wilson not in top 100
Littles
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The reason for the frequent turnovers and poor shooting (4 3s made) is that everyone outside of MH is simply a role/bench player. I watched the UW-UWGB game, and everyone on UW's main guys was better than MU's main guys. Really discouraging. Frankly, if it wasn't for the Dawson commitment, the chatter about Wojo would become a lot noisier.
Ummmm, no. I’d take King and Reuvers and that’s it.
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Query: can someone with more energy than me list and compare the players Wojo inherited with the players Deane inherited?
According to 247, Wojo inherited 7 top 100 recruits:
Duane Wilson #59
JJJ #32
Deonte Burton #50
Luke Fischer #90
Steve Taylor #96
Juan Anderson #70
Sandy Cohen #76
Maybe that season should have been a little better than just a complete embarrassment. The above guys are no worse than the current group with the exception of Howard.
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Let’s keep in mind Buzz didn’t win with the players he left for Wojo either, so you can’t really put that all on Wojo. Buzz’s history of hitting on his high school recruits wasn’t outstanding. In fact some of his better high school recruits were the lower ranked guys.
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So final tally on Howard's minutes is 25. I know he sat the last 7:30 of the first half with two fouls but he didn't pick up a foul the rest of the game and still didn't play max minutes in the second half. What do you all think? Intentionally didn't rely on him to get the other guys to step up? Or was Wojo legitimately limiting his minutes because he thought it was the best way to win the game?
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Oh goodie!
Another discussion about whose cupboard was more bare.
I say Al's was.
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This is gonna be a doozy of a season so strap in folks. And not in a good way.
No excuses for a performance like that against little sisters of the poor
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Oh. So Coach got us a win. Cool.
On to the next one.
Sometimes coaching isn’t about getting a pretty or blowout win against a cupcake. Sometimes coaching is about getting other players to step up and working out the weaknesses. Markus takes 6 shots which is his lowest career in a game he wasn’t injured. The team was forced to figure it out against a team where the win was never in doubt. The team was playing to improve versus playing to just win.
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I'm including the rsci rankings of the players Wojo inherited, not Deane's (rsci doesn't go back that far)
Deane: Wojo:
Eford Du Wilson 59
Pieper Fischer 71
T Miller Anderson 81
McCaskill JJJ 30
Crawford Taylor 82
Hutchins Cohen 75
Abraham Burton 54
Joseph De Wilson not in top 100
Littles
Let's not forget Mayo and Noskowiak (rated Top 100 by Scout and ESPN).
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I'm including the rsci rankings of the players Wojo inherited, not Deane's (rsci doesn't go back that far)
Deane: Wojo:
Eford Du Wilson 59
Pieper Fischer 71
T Miller Anderson 81
McCaskill JJJ 30
Crawford Taylor 82
Hutchins Cohen 75
Abraham Burton 54
Joseph De Wilson not in top 100
Littles
Deane inherited more experience. Wojo perhaps more potential.
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So final tally on Howard's minutes is 25. I know he sat the last 7:30 of the first half with two fouls but he didn't pick up a foul the rest of the game and still didn't play max minutes in the second half. What do you all think? Intentionally didn't rely on him to get the other guys to step up? Or was Wojo legitimately limiting his minutes because he thought it was the best way to win the game?
I think Wojo is limiting his minutes to both give him rest, but also to let the team grow without him.
However what disturbs me was more how he played. An example is when he dribbled into the lane, was wide open, and through a bad bounce pass to Theo. He has to take that shot. He makes that 99% of the time. Yeah I know he needs to distribute, but scorers need to score.
He doesn't seem to understand how to balance his game. How he shouldn't just go nuts shooting the ball like he did v. UW. But also not to defer when it isn't necessary like he did yesterday. I worry it's in his head.
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I think Wojo is limiting his minutes to both give him rest, but also to let the team grow without him.
However what disturbs me was more how he played. An example is when he dribbled into the lane, was wide open, and through a bad bounce pass to Theo. He has to take that shot. He makes that 99% of the time. Yeah I know he needs to distribute, but scorers need to score.
He doesn't seem to understand how to balance his game. How he shouldn't just go nuts shooting the ball like he did v. UW. But also not to defer when it isn't necessary like he did yesterday. I worry it's in his head.
MH was pissed at himeslf atfter that play. He looked at the bench and made the shooting motion. He knew he needed to take that shot. I thought he played a decent second half. He took 5 shots, scored 11 points and had 3 assists.
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Didn't see the game. Thank God. Bailey and Anim finally did something.
But competition wasn't the greatest. Way to stink it up Markus. Team
leader,--PROVE IT.
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So final tally on Howard's minutes is 25. I know he sat the last 7:30 of the first half with two fouls but he didn't pick up a foul the rest of the game and still didn't play max minutes in the second half. What do you all think? Intentionally didn't rely on him to get the other guys to step up? Or was Wojo legitimately limiting his minutes because he thought it was the best way to win the game?
This.
Let’s say Wojo enters yesterday’s cup cake bake with a Mr Burns look in his eyes and utters “Smithers (Stan?) release the hounds.” Markus plays 35 and drops 35. Koby drops another 15 and the rest of the squad manages 20 and we win in a laugher.
Is the team better prepared or more committed to work on shortcomings (say post entry passing, drive and dump to the short corner, goodness gracious St Ignatius)?
Lots more got revealed yesterday:
Defense still needs work
Transition offense is all too rare
Spot-ups on drive and kicks seem off
Sacar not playing like the glue guy we all love
Bright sides:
For most of the game we attacked the defensive glass like Pritzl (yes that hurt to type)
Bailey showed signs of life on both ends - this team is better if he’s an efficient 10 ppg
More time and chances for Ed
A few more minutes for a grad transfer we’ll need in big east play. C’mon Jayce.
Greg still coming back from a year off and looking like it
I’ll leave it to others to declare talent or lack thereof. I will say I think the coach and team have a far better idea of where they need to keep building than if we’d gotten 50 points and minutes from the guys we know can do it.
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Sometimes coaching isn’t about getting a pretty or blowout win against a cupcake. Sometimes coaching is about getting other players to step up and working out the weaknesses. Markus takes 6 shots which is his lowest career in a game he wasn’t injured. The team was forced to figure it out against a team where the win was never in doubt. The team was playing to improve versus playing to just win.
This is so blatantly obvious I’m surprised nobody else has posted it yet.
Well, it is Scoop so maybe I’m not surprised.
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This is so blatantly obvious I’m surprised nobody else has posted it yet.
Well, it is Scoop so maybe I’m not surprised.
Agreed. We need contributions outside the M&M boys (Markus & McEwen).
Yesterday Bailey, Sacar and Theo combined for 32 points on pretty efficient 12 for 22 shooting and grabbed 14 boards.
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I'm including the rsci rankings of the players Wojo inherited, not Deane's (rsci doesn't go back that far)
Deane: Wojo:
Eford Du Wilson 59
Pieper Fischer 71
T Miller Anderson 81
McCaskill JJJ 30
Crawford Taylor 82
Hutchins Cohen 75
Abraham Burton 54
Joseph De Wilson not in top 100
Littles
How many of these players were as good as their RSCI's?
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Deane inherited more experience. Wojo perhaps more potential.
The Deane team was hands down better and more well rounded and its not even close. More potential is laughable. Fluffy you are usually very pragmatic. Forget recruiting rankings, this is a no brainer.
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The Deane team was hands down better and more well rounded and its not even close. More potential is laughable. Fluffy you are usually very pragmatic. Forget recruiting rankings, this is a no brainer.
Well ok. To be fair that is why I said “perhaps.” But anyway Deane inherited a decent set of players who went to the S16. Granted he didn’t have Key or Mac, but I think he had enough to get to NCAA. But they got to the NIT.
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So final tally on Howard's minutes is 25. I know he sat the last 7:30 of the first half with two fouls but he didn't pick up a foul the rest of the game and still didn't play max minutes in the second half. What do you all think? Intentionally didn't rely on him to get the other guys to step up? Or was Wojo legitimately limiting his minutes because he thought it was the best way to win the game?
I don't think Howard was right. Maybe picked up an undisclosed knock or had an illness, but he passed on a couple wide open threes as well as a drive into the lane where you would normally expect him to score with ease. I also noticed one play, I believe it was in the first half, where it really looked on TV like we were playing 4-on-5 on offense because Markus went to the corner and didn't move the entire set. It wasn't until the end of the play that the camera shifted enough that you could see him, but he had to pretty much be motionless waiting for the ball, making no effort to work for it.
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Anyone take a guess as to why this team refuses to try and play in transition more? Granted, we haven't had many live-ball turnovers. But even on defensive boards, we're much more likely to walk it up the court.
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Anyone take a guess as to why this team refuses to try and play in transition more? Granted, we haven't had many live-ball turnovers. But even on defensive boards, we're much more likely to walk it up the court.
So far, one of my biggest disappointments of this young season.
I thought with McEwen, Elliott, Torrence, an improved Bailey and an improved Cain, to go with Anim and Theo, we would get more fast-break opportunities ignited either by a steal or a blocked shot. So far, we haven't.
This is not a great offensive team. It sure would be nice to get a few easy buckets.
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So final tally on Howard's minutes is 25. I know he sat the last 7:30 of the first half with two fouls but he didn't pick up a foul the rest of the game and still didn't play max minutes in the second half. What do you all think? Intentionally didn't rely on him to get the other guys to step up? Or was Wojo legitimately limiting his minutes because he thought it was the best way to win the game?
I felt Wojo wanted to get other guys involved so we could get them going, so Markus deferred. Was surprised he didn’t start putting up more shots at the start of 2H and once things got tight again later in the game. Also purely conjecture and mentioned elsewhere, but Markus may be dealing with some personal relationship stuff, so Wojo May have just felt his head wasn’t right yesterday.
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Anyone take a guess as to why this team refuses to try and play in transition more? Granted, we haven't had many live-ball turnovers. But even on defensive boards, we're much more likely to walk it up the court.
I've been wondering the same thing. This team is quicker and more athletic than what we've seen in recent years, so I assumed we'd try to push the pace more this year. But so far, we don't really seem to want to play in transition much. Are there stats available that track fast break points? If so, I'd be curious to see where we're at right now. I'm not sure if we're getting much more than 6-8 points per game so far.
The only thing I can guess is that Wojo didn't change the offensive sets much from last year when we were definitely built more as a halfcourt team. With the way we've been shooting so far, though, I think Wojo should try to get these guys to run a little more.
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Anyone take a guess as to why this team refuses to try and play in transition more? Granted, we haven't had many live-ball turnovers. But even on defensive boards, we're much more likely to walk it up the court.
turnovers! they don't seem quite sure of their roles. shooting has been atrocious! stuck in mode where they are told the play is supposed to go here and they can't seem to think that if the passing lane isn't open, abort abort abort, plan "b" or plan "c", but they pass it anyway and predictably so, it's batted away and/or stolen. they don't seem sure of each other yet, each others tendencies? when markus is being guarded by 2-2 1/2 guys, someone has got to be open. need an established mid-range shooter. can't just dunk or shoot the 3.
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turnovers! they don't seem quite sure of their roles. shooting has been atrocious! stuck in mode where they are told the play is supposed to go here and they can't seem to think that if the passing lane isn't open, abort abort abort, plan "b" or plan "c", but they pass it anyway and predictably so, it's batted away and/or stolen. they don't seem sure of each other yet, each others tendencies? when markus is being guarded by 2-2 1/2 guys, someone has got to be open. need an established mid-range shooter. can't just dunk or shoot the 3.
What does that have to do with fast break scoring?
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The Deane team was hands down better and more well rounded and its not even close.
Finally getting the recognition I deserve around here
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Anyone take a guess as to why this team refuses to try and play in transition more? Granted, we haven't had many live-ball turnovers. But even on defensive boards, we're much more likely to walk it up the court.
It's Wojo's defense. Hard to get out in transition when your team is sub-300 in defensive turnover percentage and steal percentage. Further, Wojo's defensive team rankings in both turnover and steal percentage have gone down every year he's been here.
Markus Howard leads this team in steal percentage with 1.5%. For comparison sake, here's where that percentage would rank on other Big East teams, as well as their leaders (using 30+% minute players only):
Xavier: 8th (Scruggs, 3.3%)
DePaul: 7th (Gage 7.8%)
Providence: 7th (Pipkins 5.1%)
Seton Hall: 7th (Rhoden, 4.3%)
Creighton: 6th (Mitchell, 5.1%)
St. John's: 6th (Rutherford, 3.6%)
Butler: 5th (Battle 3.5%)
Georgetown: 4th (McClung 3.2%)
Villanova: 4th (Gillespie 3.1%)
This is not an accident. This is strategic. We are not pressuring the ball. We are not trying to create live-ball turnovers. I wrote about this back in April:
http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2019/04/turnovers-of-non-transfer-kind.html
Wojo has not made creating turnovers a defensive priority. I will say that because of this we have likely been a better eFG% defense team, and that is the most important factor in defensive efficiency. But if anyone's gripe is turnovers, don't expect it to change soon. In the past, Wojo has generally relegated players that gamble on steals to the bench and as we see this year, players that have successfully created live ball turnovers like Cain and Elliott have made that less of a focus, likely to earn minutes.
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It’s not so they can learn how to score. The team doesn’t like playing with him and it was Wojo’s way of teaching some kind of lesson.
This season is going to be a train wreck the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long, long time.
So much foolishness
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So much foolishness
It probably is foolishness, but I wouldn't particularly like playing with him. He dominates the ball and doesn't look to get others involved. When he is forced to share by coach (as it appears was the case yesterday) he's not too good at it.
What I really worry about is that teams will really force him to give up the ball by hard doubling him and forcing our other guys to beat them and that those others won't be up to the task.
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It probably is foolishness, but I wouldn't particularly like playing with him. He dominates the ball and doesn't look to get others involved. When he is forced to share by coach (as it appears was the case yesterday) he's not too good at it.
What I really worry about is that teams will really force him to give up the ball by hard doubling him and forcing our other guys to beat them and that those others won't be up to the task.
Had an assist rate of 27.2 last year. Had 5th best assist rate in Big East play. High usage rate understood
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When he is forced to share by coach (as it appears was the case yesterday) he's not too good at it.
Query: Why would Wojo "force him to share" this year but not with the Hausers?
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I think Howard is trying to show he is a complete player. Also, having Markus play off the ball is an adjustment and option that was unavailable last year. So, adjustments.
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What does that have to do with fast break scoring?
everything. when ya turn the ball over, it kinda kills the fast break. when ya can't shoot, it kinda kills a fast break. when ya don't know where your players are moving, hence their tendencies, it kinda kills the fast break, when markus is being double teamed and ya can't find the open guy on the fast break, thee is no fast break. passing lanes? not sure what is so difficult to understand
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Al wood sey da teem is an extension of its coach. Woj kant run, hey?
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everything. when ya turn the ball over, it kinda kills the fast break. when ya can't shoot, it kinda kills a fast break. when ya don't know where your players are moving, hence their tendencies, it kinda kills the fast break, when markus is being double teamed and ya can't find the open guy on the fast break, thee is no fast break. passing lanes? not sure what is so difficult to understand
You don’t understand what a fast break is.
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everything. when ya turn the ball over, it kinda kills the fast break. when ya can't shoot, it kinda kills a fast break. when ya don't know where your players are moving, hence their tendencies, it kinda kills the fast break, when markus is being double teamed and ya can't find the open guy on the fast break, thee is no fast break. passing lanes? not sure what is so difficult to understand
If Wojo pumped them up a bit more in the huddle during the fast break that could help too.
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Query: Why would Wojo "force him to share" this year but not with the Hausers?
Potential explanation: Because Wojo learned from the Hauser experience and grew from the lessons he picked up?
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Al wood sey da teem is an extension of its coach. Woj kant run, hey?
Woj has a weight problem
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I think Howard is trying to show he is a complete player. Also, having Markus play off the ball is an adjustment and option that was unavailable last year. So, adjustments.
Why though? Opinions can differ about whether Markus should've shared the ball more last season, but with less scoring options he should be welcome to be selfish if it leads to wins.
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It probably is foolishness, but I wouldn't particularly like playing with him. He dominates the ball and doesn't look to get others involved. When he is forced to share by coach (as it appears was the case yesterday) he's not too good at it.
What I really worry about is that teams will really force him to give up the ball by hard doubling him and forcing our other guys to beat them and that those others won't be up to the task.
if you can score, you will get your shots when.playing with Markus. See Rowsey, Andrew and Hauser, Sam.
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I think Howard is trying to show he is a complete player. Also, having Markus play off the ball is an adjustment and option that was unavailable last year. So, adjustments.
Honest question: What do you think of the "play" we frequently run where Markus stands in the corner doing nothing while the other 4 guys try to get a shot? What is its purpose?How does this help him show he's a complete player? Is Wojo trying to prove to the rest of the team how lost they would be without Markus?
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Honest question: What do you think of the "play" we frequently run where Markus stands in the corner doing nothing while the other 4 guys try to get a shot? What is its purpose?How does this help him show he's a complete player? Is Wojo trying to prove to the rest of the team how lost they would be without Markus?
It's not just Markus. It seems that this is a consistent thing but the player varies.
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Honest question: What do you think of the "play" we frequently run where Markus stands in the corner doing nothing while the other 4 guys try to get a shot? What is its purpose?How does this help him show he's a complete player? Is Wojo trying to prove to the rest of the team how lost they would be without Markus?
I know you're not asking me but this drives me insane. I know Markus is turnover prone but we're best when the ball is in his hands. He puts so much pressure on the defense to react and most teams are defending on their heels. Him standing in the corner causes the offense to go stagnant.
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You don’t understand what a fast break is.
get down the floor quickly and put the rock in the hole...you guys are referring to the game of basketball, no?
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Honest question: What do you think of the "play" we frequently run where Markus stands in the corner doing nothing while the other 4 guys try to get a shot? What is its purpose?How does this help him show he's a complete player? Is Wojo trying to prove to the rest of the team how lost they would be without Markus?
I don't like it. The only reason I can see for it is that you have to believe the opponent's best defender is playing no help defense and that Wojo believes his other 4 can beat the opponent's other 4.
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I don't like it. The only reason I can see for it is that you have to believe the opponent's best defender is playing no help defense and that Wojo believes his other 4 can beat the opponent's other 4.
I think we all know they cannot. Ed?, Theo?, bailey?, sacar? Oye vey
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What I really worry about is that teams will really force him (Howard) to give up the ball by hard doubling him and forcing our other guys to beat them and that those others won't be up to the task.
Look, if I was coaching a team playing Marquette, I'd do that all day. We saw in the Henry Ellenson year that teams would sometimes triple Henry knowing that Marquette was a Hero ball team. Without Henry that year, it's questionable whether Marquette could have beaten anybody in the Big East not named DePaul.
As a Coach, until someone can prove to me that Theo, Sacar, Kobe and Brendan can beat me, I'd cover Markus Howard so tightly that he couldn't breathe. Under these circumstances, I'm afraid for the worst this year.
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Look, if I was coaching a team playing Marquette, I'd do that all day. We saw in the Henry Ellenson year that teams would sometimes triple Henry knowing that Marquette was a Hero ball team. Without Henry that it year, it's questionable whether Marquette could have beaten anybody in the Big East not named DePaul.
As a Coach, until someone can prove to me that Theo, Sacar, Kobe and Brendan can beat me, I'd cover Markus Howard so tightly that he couldn't breathe. Under these circumstances, I'm afraid for the worst this year.
Agree with the strategy.
Luckily for Marquette, we have one of the great players in basketball history in Kobe.
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Question is , could we have a bad enough year that wojo gets fired or not?
I say at this point with Garcia my guess would be no, but once again another year with a can't win in march coach rolls on.
his commitment all but guarantees wojo another year at marquette, regardless of whether or not we finish higher than depaul in conference......
We have one high quality / all american level starter the rest are horizon league level players (recruitment level ranking no matter )
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We have one high quality / all american level starter the rest are horizon league level players (recruitment level ranking no matter )
This remains just as stupid as the first time you wrote it.
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Question is , could we have a bad enough year that wojo gets fired or not?
I say at this point with Garcia my guess would be no, but once again another year with a can't win in march coach rolls on.
his commitment all but guarantees wojo another year at marquette, regardless of whether or not we finish higher than depaul in conference......
We have one high quality / all american level starter the rest are horizon league level players (recruitment level ranking no matter )
Just a simple question for you since you give such simplistic feedback here. If our other guys are on,y Horizon level players, why at the end of their recruitments when they chose MU were there on,y high major schools left?
All those schools didn’t analyze the talent level either? Lol
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Over ranked / over hyped.
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Over ranked / over hyped.
Didn’t answer / no one surprised at lack of answer
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Agree with the strategy.
Luckily for Marquette, we have one of the great players in basketball history in Kobe.
Gosh, I hate it when the resident copy editor takes over.
Lucas G. Staudacher lives!
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Question is , could we have a bad enough year that wojo gets fired or not?
I say at this point with Garcia my guess would be no, but once again another year with a can't win in march coach rolls on.
his commitment all but guarantees wojo another year at marquette, regardless of whether or not we finish higher than depaul in conference......
We have one high quality / all american level starter the rest are horizon league level players (recruitment level ranking no matter )
I think Herman's thought that he would leave for another job is a more realistic scenario, even if it is a perceived lateral move. I don't see any way he gets fired unless the bottom completely falls out.
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This statement about the rest of the roster is not far off. UWM has transfers from Illinois & USC. The simple act of a top-25-ish program recruiting a player likely improves the player's stock more than any other variable.
Question is , could we have a bad enough year that wojo gets fired or not?
I say at this point with Garcia my guess would be no, but once again another year with a can't win in march coach rolls on.
his commitment all but guarantees wojo another year at marquette, regardless of whether or not we finish higher than depaul in conference......
We have one high quality / all american level starter the rest are horizon league level players (recruitment level ranking no matter )
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Question is , could we have a bad enough year that wojo gets fired or not?
I say at this point with Garcia my guess would be no, but once again another year with a can't win in March coach rolls on. His commitment all but guarantees Wojo another year at Marquette, regardless of whether or not we finish higher than Depaul in conference......
My concern is less whether we win in March but whether we even get to March. I know it is still very early in the spring for this season, but it already feels like winter. Unless there is a dramatic improvement in the coming weeks, I doubt we'll even be considered for the NCAA and, possibly not even the NIT.
If Purdue had hit their free throws, Marquette would be 2-2 and have not a single Top 100 win.
Make Marquette feared again is a long way away.
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This statement about the rest of the roster is not far off. UWM has transfers from Illinois & USC. The simple act of a top-25-ish program recruiting a player likely improves the player's stock more than any other variable.
Except it also means all the other programs recruiting them are complicit in the malpractice. I don't disagree with you that depending on who LANDS the kid, the rankings can get bolstered, but let's also look at who else recruited them.
BB originally committed to Arizona State. He was offered by Arizona, Arizona State, BYU.
Morrow originally committed and played for Nebraska. He was offered by Georgia, Florida State, Creighton, Iowa, Minnesota
Jayce Johnson originally committed and played for Utah. Offered by Kansas, Oregon, Notre Dame, Colorado, Auburn, Arizona State, Stanford, Vandy
Theo John offered by Cal, Oklahoma, Purdue, Texas Tech, Minnesota, Maryland, Nebraska, Illinois
Greg Elliotts offered by Michigan State, Providence
Jamal Cain offered by Florida State, Georgia, Cincinnati, Michigan, Xavier
And on and on. This is why Mike Deane's Seatbelt comments make no sense. Incidentally, I'm guessing at least 50 to 100 other message boards are saying this about their team....it's what fans do.
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My concern is less whether we win in March but whether we even get to March. I know it is still very early in the spring for this season, but it already feels like winter. Unless there is a dramatic improvement in the coming weeks, I doubt we'll even be considered for the NCAA and, possibly not even the NIT.
If Purdue had hit their free throws, Marquette would be 2-2 and have not a single Top 100 win.
Make Marquette feared again is a long way away.
365 days ago, we were 4-2, with a single top 100 win (that had a fair bit of luck involved), a record second half collapse on what could have been a marquee win, and a 20+ point blow out where we got outplayed for literally all 40 minutes, and many people here had the exact same idea; that we would be lucky to get an NIT invite. We turned it around for a pretty good December, January, and February, and were set for a postseason run until our All-American got hurt. Lets try to #MakeScoopNotPanicEveryNovember first.
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There are very few "sure-things" in recruiting, except at the Duke/Kentucky level. What you need are a few of the players to either meet or exceed their expectations. There isn't a player on the team (outside of MH) that has met or exceeded their expectations during recruiting. This season's roster is the cumulative effect of below-expectation players, and the loss of the key performers. Some will blame the coaches for not developing the players that are brought in, and that complaint has merit.
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There are very few "sure-things" in recruiting, except at the Duke/Kentucky level. What you need are a few of the players to either meet or exceed their expectations. There isn't a player on the team (outside of MH) that has met or exceeded their expectations during recruiting. This season's roster is the cumulative effect of below-expectation players, and the loss of the key performers. Some will blame the coaches for not developing the players that are brought in, and that complaint has merit.
I think you could make a good argument Sacar has met or exceeded. Not drastically, but he was never expected to be an impact recruit and he's now started three years often locking down opposing best players with a few explosive games.
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So when the 204th ranked prospect leads the conference in blocks that's not even meeting expectations? I guess we'd better expect Dawson to be a four year All-American.
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There are very few "sure-things" in recruiting, except at the Duke/Kentucky level. What you need are a few of the players to either meet or exceed their expectations. There isn't a player on the team (outside of MH) that has met or exceeded their expectations during recruiting. This season's roster is the cumulative effect of below-expectation players, and the loss of the key performers. Some will blame the coaches for not developing the players that are brought in, and that complaint has merit.
I strongly disagree.
Theo John was 204th nationally, a 3 star recruit. He has easily met expectations, and some would say exceeded them.
Greg Elliott was 224th nationally, a 3 star recruit. Was injured all of last year. He certainly hasn't been BELOW expectations. I'd say at expectations.
Sacar Anim, just under 200th nationally, a 3 star recruit. Pretty much at expectations.
You were expecting what out of 3 star, 200ish level players? 18 points a game? Come on.
What we need is consistency out of BB and Cain, and a step up from each of them (Cain also a 3 star kid). We will see how long it takes for Torrence to get into the mix, but he is raw with upside.
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I strongly disagree.
Theo John was 204th nationally, a 3 star recruit. He has easily met expectations, and some would say exceeded them.
Greg Elliott was 224th nationally, a 3 star recruit. Was injured all of last year. He certainly hasn't been BELOW expectations. I'd say at expectations.
Sacar Anim, just under 200th nationally, a 3 star recruit. Pretty much at expectations.
You were expecting what out of 3 star, 200ish level players? 18 points a game? Come on.
What we need is consistency out of BB and Cain, and a step up from each of them (Cain also a 3 star kid). We will see how long it takes for Torrence to get into the mix, but he is raw with upside.
I recall Cain being a 4 star by some services. But yeah him and Bailey are the only two that I'd put below expectations to date.
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Warrior of Law
I completely agree with your post, with exception of Sacar. He has exceeded expectation, but that would be great if he were a 6th or 7th man on a good team. I have said this program lacks talent for the entire Wojo era and the loss of two big contributors only highlights that. Makes no difference to me who else recruited our guys or what they were ranked because results is all that matters.
I am very happy that Wojo is putting together a good recruiting class but there is a ton of work to be done to take this program to the next level. Having watched the start of this season bad memories are being revisited in my head.
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Time to resurrect this maybe?
Season checklist
(x) Non-conference near-miss against inferior opponent (Robert Morris)
(x) Non-conference stinker to inferior opponent (UW-Madison)
( )Non-conference loss on big stage convinces board MU not ready for Big East
( ) Unmentionable conference loss
( ) Road Game we weren't supposed to win
( ) Late surge
( ) Top-half Big East Finish
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Warrior of Law
I completely agree with your post, with exception of Sacar. He has exceeded expectation, but that would be great if he were a 6th or 7th man on a good team. I have said this program lacks talent for the entire Wojo era and the loss of two big contributors only highlights that. Makes no difference to me who else recruited our guys or what they were ranked because results is all that matters.
I am very happy that Wojo is putting together a good recruiting class but there is a ton of work to be done to take this program to the next level. Having watched the start of this season bad memories are being revisited in my head.
Hmmmm.....
I am officially going on record that I believe this will be Wojo's best team to date and by a wide margin. On different thread I noted that that Bailey would be the difference maker this season and have a change of heart. I think the new big guy in the middle and Kobe are going to be time contributors this season. In addition, I think Ed M. is going to play a very major role this season and end up getting more PT than Theo.
Until the last few weeks I thought this season would be a repeat of previous seasons in regards to NCAA success. I now think that everyone stays healthy, this team will win a minimum of one NCAA game this season. My confidence level that we will not have a "fool's gold" season is quite high. While I still remain disappointed in losing the Hausers, this team might make some noise.
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Except it also means all the other programs recruiting them are complicit in the malpractice. I don't disagree with you that depending on who LANDS the kid, the rankings can get bolstered, but let's also look at who else recruited them.
BB originally committed to Arizona State. He was offered by Arizona, Arizona State, BYU.
Morrow originally committed and played for Nebraska. He was offered by Georgia, Florida State, Creighton, Iowa, Minnesota
Jayce Johnson originally committed and played for Utah. Offered by Kansas, Oregon, Notre Dame, Colorado, Auburn, Arizona State, Stanford, Vandy
Theo John offered by Cal, Oklahoma, Purdue, Texas Tech, Minnesota, Maryland, Nebraska, Illinois
Greg Elliotts offered by Michigan State, Providence
Jamal Cain offered by Florida State, Georgia, Cincinnati, Michigan, Xavier
And on and on. This is why Mike Deane's Seatbelt comments make no sense. Incidentally, I'm guessing at least 50 to 100 other message boards are saying this about their team....it's what fans do.
Great post. Our kids were recruited by high majors. The kids in our system are old, experienced, were coveted by other good programs, so we should have high expectations for their performance this year. So now it comes down to the nuts and bolts of coaching.
At some point Wojo has to prove he can win in a meaningful way. Last year the Big East was awful, and we imploded in epic fashion. That shouldn't happen in Year 5. Nor should we expect anything less than an NCAA bid this season and at least 1 victory in tournament.
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My concern is less whether we win in March but whether we even get to March. I know it is still very early in the spring for this season, but it already feels like winter. Unless there is a dramatic improvement in the coming weeks, I doubt we'll even be considered for the NCAA and, possibly not even the NIT.
If Purdue had hit their free throws, Marquette would be 2-2 and have not a single Top 100 win.
Make Marquette feared again is a long way away.
What the hell has happened to this website ? God this forum has become absolutely deranged. The sky is not falling. RELAX
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Great post. Our kids were recruited by high majors. The kids in our system are old, experienced, were coveted by other good programs, so we should have high expectations for their performance this year. So now it comes down to the nuts and bolts of coaching.
At some point Wojo has to prove he can win in a meaningful way. Last year the Big East was awful, and we imploded in epic fashion. That shouldn't happen in Year 5. Nor should we expect anything less than an NCAA bid this season and at least 1 victory in tournament.
The difference and I think Goose is right, some of these kids are starting for us and would likely be reserves on those other teams. That's the way it goes when you rebuild. Lots of 3 star guys, a 4 here or there. Now we signed Torrence, a 4 star...and two more 4's and a 5 coming in next year. That's taking the talent up a level.
That's also why Wojo is going NOWHERE any time soon. Victories in tournaments...crapshoot. Depends on who you play, where you play, style of play, etc.
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If Purdue had hit their free throws, Marquette would be 2-2 and have not a single Top 100 win.
#FakeNews
Why would Purdue hit 100% of their FTA's, when the average team hits around 70-71%? They also would not have gotten offense rebounds leading to easy scores off their missed FTs. Purdue's free throw shooting didn't lose them the game. Shooting 6.2% eFG% worse than MU did.
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Hmmmm.....
Now that is funny. Even Goose has to admit that.
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DJO
I did say I thought it would be Wojo's best team and maybe I was flat out wrong. I based my comments off high expectations for Johnson and believing that the returning guys were going to make big improvements. Last April many said the returning guys were going to up their games to fill the void in the loss of Sam and Joey and that obviously is not the case. While I never have thought that anyone, aside from Howard is a big time D1 player, I fell into the trap of believing one or two guys would up their games and no one did. This is a team of role players on a really good team or a group that a very high level coach could coach up.
Sadly, I actually did think this year's team was going to be a good one. I have not 100% thrown in the towel for this year and maybe they get coached up and improve.
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Shooter
I do think it is funny that I was frickin' stupid enough to believe that Wojo had coached up the returning players and they make us forget about Sam and Joey.
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Goose,
I agree with you more and more on Wojo and his ability to coach (or lack there of) and our overall talent this year (or lack there of). The stark contrast between the two posts one month apart was humorous though and I felt that even you would agree. Not trying to pick a fight.
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DJO
I did say I thought it would be Wojo's best team and maybe I was flat out wrong. I based my comments off high expectations for Johnson and believing that the returning guys were going to make big improvements. Last April many said the returning guys were going to up their games to fill the void in the loss of Sam and Joey and that obviously is not the case. While I never have thought that anyone, aside from Howard is a big time D1 player, I fell into the trap of believing one or two guys would up their games and no one did has yet. This is a team of role players on a really good team or a group that a very high level coach could coach up.
Sadly, I actually did think this year's team was going to be a good one. I have not 100% thrown in the towel for this year and maybe they get coached up and improve.
Do you really think that you have a large enough sample size to make this declaration.
We do the same thing with grad transfers every year. Especially now considering his injury, I don't think it's fair to judge Jayce in any way until the middle of January. I don't know if all the pieces will come together, but prior to a 4 game sample size you did, and I think it's just silly to completely backtrack on that in November.
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DJO
The sample size is that returning players did make big strides upward and one of the new guys are not enough to make up for Sam and Joey being gone.
You say "has yet" and I say no one did. For the record, I based my comments off of experience, not just throwing things out there. I will cite an example, from day one Vander's JR. season anyone who knew ball could tell he upped his game significantly over the off season. Only real question that some had was they wanted to see over a bigger sample size than first 6-7 games. That said, the improvement could be noted by casual fans or fans that know the game. He became better because he was a very skilled player with flaws that needed improvement. Current guys are not very skilled players.
There is not one returning player that improved their shooting, dribbling, rebounding, passing, defensive by any real margin margin. I was counting on BB or Cain or anyone making a major leap forward. They all had ample playing time ahead of them and yet no one got much better. IMO, the answer is simple, they are role players and not top level D1 players.
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DJO
The sample size is that returning players did make big strides upward and one of the new guys are not enough to make up for Sam and Joey being gone.
You say "has yet" and I say no one did. For the record, I based my comments off of experience, not just throwing things out there. I will cite an example, from day one Vander's JR. season anyone who knew ball could tell he upped his game significantly over the off season. Only real question that some had was they wanted to see over a bigger sample size than first 6-7 games. That said, the improvement could be noted by casual fans or fans that know the game. He became better because he was a very skilled player with flaws that needed improvement. Current guys are not very skilled players.
There is not one returning player that improved their shooting, dribbling, rebounding, passing, defensive by any real margin margin. I was counting on BB or Cain or anyone making a major leap forward. They all had ample playing time ahead of them and yet no one got much better. IMO, the answer is simple, they are role players and not top level D1 players.
Once again, you are basing this off of an extremely small sample size. They looked good enough in the open practice for you to think that they'd turned a corner, and now after four games you're completely backtracking. If we come out on fire and take down the Orlando tourney and K-State, are you going to use that 4 game sample to book your trip to Atlanta? I understand jumping to conclusions is the Scoop M.O., but this large a change this quickly seems excessive, even for us.
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The difference and I think Goose is right, some of these kids are starting for us and would likely be reserves on those other teams. That's the way it goes when you rebuild. Lots of 3 star guys, a 4 here or there. Now we signed Torrence, a 4 star...and two more 4's and a 5 coming in next year. That's taking the talent up a level.
That's also why Wojo is going NOWHERE any time soon. Victories in tournaments...crapshoot. Depends on who you play, where you play, style of play, etc.
It seems like the best thing about Wojo's tenure is always the next few years. I'd just like to finally experience one of them.
Getting big recruiting wins is great and is a good sign for the respect Wojo has nationally, but it's tough to not see the things materialize the way we keep thinking/hoping they will during the season. And sure, we've been fine the last few years. We've made some tourney appearances and notched a few marquee wins. We have certainly not been a bad program by any stretch. But I think most of us had a little higher expectations than what we've gotten in the last few years.
And crapshoot or not, March matters. If we would have made the second weekend last year, a lot of the frustrations of the late season collapse would have been erased. Instead, we got a final exclamation point on the year, cementing the ugly ending with a good old fashioned butt whooping. Until Wojo gets a win in the tournament, that will continue to be a big missing line on his resume.
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DJO
I have been on record for saying that I thought we had mid level talent, aside from Howard (Sam and Joey), and believe the sample size is big enough. Also, I have said many times that a great coach probably coach these guys up and have a decent season. So, either the guys who have not big improvements decide to improve during the season or coach ups his game, my post from October is wrong.
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DJO
I have been on record for saying that I thought we had mid level talent, aside from Howard (Sam and Joey), and believe the sample size is big enough. Also, I have said many times that a great coach probably coach these guys up and have a decent season. So, either the guys who have not big improvements decide to improve during the season or coach ups his game, my post from October is wrong.
Just out of curiousity did the Torrence or Bailey or Mckewen additions never hype you up at all or have they just not performed to what you'd hoped?
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DJO
I have been on record for saying that I thought we had mid level talent, aside from Howard (Sam and Joey), and believe the sample size is big enough. Also, I have said many times that a great coach probably coach these guys up and have a decent season. So, either the guys who have not big improvements decide to improve during the season or coach ups his game, my post from October is wrong.
Not trying to call you out or anything, but then why did you make this prediction, you obviously saw something that you liked? You knew that Sam and Joey were already gone, you knew Markus was back, you knew that Wojo would be the coach, I believe Nelson had already left, you knew the schedule. The only additional information that we have about this current team between October and now is 4 games. If you had gone from doom and gloom to doom and gloom I would understand, but you've switched from "best team to date by a wide margin", to now, "we have mid level talent".
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Once again, you are basing this off of an extremely small sample size. They looked good enough in the open practice for you to think that they'd turned a corner, and now after four games you're completely backtracking. If we come out on fire and take down the Orlando tourney and K-State, are you going to use that 4 game sample to book your trip to Atlanta? I understand jumping to conclusions is the Scoop M.O., but this large a change this quickly seems excessive, even for us.
Come on, this isn't just a Scoop thing. This is what sports fans do. It's part of the experience of following a team. And it definitely goes both ways. It's a roller coaster. And it's all part of spending time and energy and money watching a bunch of teenagers throw a ball at a hoop all winter.
If you're patient and can wait until March to think about March, good for you. But a ton of fans aren't wired like that. They make predictions based on what they've seen, whether that's one game or ten or a few seasons. For the most part, it's not in bad faith, either. It's just voicing the opinion they've formed.
I wish people would stop acting like it's bizarre to make predictions or draw conclusions early in the year. It's a normal thing to do.
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Come on, this isn't just a Scoop thing. This is what sports fans do. It's part of the experience of following a team. And it definitely goes both ways. It's a roller coaster. And it's all part of spending time and energy and money watching a bunch of teenagers throw a ball at a hoop all winter.
If you're patient and can wait until March to think about March, good for you. But a ton of fans aren't wired like that. They make predictions based on what they've seen, whether that's one game or ten or a few seasons. For the most part, it's not in bad faith, either. It's just voicing the opinion they've formed.
I wish people would stop acting like it's bizarre to make predictions or draw conclusions early in the year. It's a normal thing to do.
All totally fair points, I just wish that the early prediction/conclusion drawing would have a little less teeth gnashing, and calls for dismissal, because I can guarantee that no matter what happens in Orlando, Wojo will still be the coach next week.
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DJO
As I have stated many times, a big recruiting year (that ends with wins in March) is more important than what this team does on the court. Wojo has a complete pass from me for on court success this season.
Will add, what I have seen this year on the court does not look promising. I guess the collapse late last season just adds to my observation.
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DJO
As I have stated many times, a big recruiting year (that ends with wins in March) is more important than what this team does on the court. Wojo has a complete pass from me for on court success this season.
Will add, what I have seen this year on the court does not look promising. I guess the collapse late last season just adds to my observation.
I remember you stating this many times, and I applaud your consistency. We're all good on that front. All I would like to know now is why you had the burst of optimism in October. All of the known events that I mentioned previously had already taken place, we had seen the team practice a couple of times. We had the box score from the I4 scrimmage, and you felt compelled to say that you thought this would be "wojos best team by a wide margin". Why did you think this?
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DJO
Because:
1. I thought BB, Cain, Elliot or Theo (least likely) were making a big leap upward. Based off of optimism from folks on here, they had big opportunity for PT this year and Wojo would coach them up. I now do not believe that is the case.
2. I thought Johnson and Morrow would take minutes from Theo and that likely will not happen. I remain under the belief that Theo is not a guy that should get more than 10 minutes per game, provided he is on a good team. IMO, he is a fan favorite, but not a basketball player.
3. I thought if #1 and #2 happened, Koby's impact would be much bigger. Right now, he is option 2 on a two option team.
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DJO
Because:
1. I thought BB, Cain, Elliot or Theo (least likely) were making a big leap upward. Based off of optimism from folks on here, they had big opportunity for PT this year and Wojo would coach them up. I now do not believe that is the case.
2. I thought Johnson and Morrow would take minutes from Theo and that likely will not happen. I remain under the belief that Theo is not a guy that should get more than 10 minutes per game, provided he is on a good team. IMO, he is a fan favorite, but not a basketball player.
3. I thought if #1 and #2 happened, Koby's impact would be much bigger. Right now, he is option 2 on a two option team.
Interesting. I accept that listening to people talk about how good a team should be can effect someone own perception of that team. As for point number 2, why the Theo hate? He's proven to be a very good defensive player (see PT most recent article with everyone's +/-'s on the year. Same limited sample size I've been stressing but Theo is +52 and Jayce and Ed are a combined -21), and, I will again say that I think it's extremely unfair to judge Jayce after what has been essentially 2 cameos after an injury. Grad transfers in general should get until the turn of the year, and throw in his injury and I won't be judging him until mid to late January. Now as Skianth pointed out, everyone can have their midseason predictions about everyone, I just think it's important to know just how infrequent it is that a team is playing to the best of their abilities at this point in the year, and that if you were optimistic about the team 6 weeks ago, 4 games is too small of a sample size to change that. All IMHO of course.
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I'll jump in to your conversation. I just think it is way too early in the season to write Bailey off. He shows some glimpses of stuffing the stat sheet. He has a very good Block percentage, aSSIST PERCENTAGE, AND REBOUND PERCENTAGE>
Appearances on Leaderboards, Awards, and Honors
Full leaderboard section · Minimum stat requirements Expand all Leaderboards
Awards
Assists Per Game
2019-20 Big East 2.5 (17th)
Blocks Per Game
2019-20 Big East 0.8 (20th)
Defensive Rebound Percentage
2019-20 Big East 16.5 (17th)
Total Rebound Percentage
2019-20 Big East 11.4 (19th)
Assist Percentage
2019-20 Big East 25.3 (8th)
Block Percentage
2019-20 Big East 3.8 (14th)
Defensive Box Plus/Minus
2019-20 Big East 5.0 (11th)
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This thread is making me thirsty
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It seems like the best thing about Wojo's tenure is always the next few years. I'd just like to finally experience one of them.
Getting big recruiting wins is great and is a good sign for the respect Wojo has nationally, but it's tough to not see the things materialize the way we keep thinking/hoping they will during the season. And sure, we've been fine the last few years. We've made some tourney appearances and notched a few marquee wins. We have certainly not been a bad program by any stretch. But I think most of us had a little higher expectations than what we've gotten in the last few years.
And crapshoot or not, March matters. If we would have made the second weekend last year, a lot of the frustrations of the late season collapse would have been erased. Instead, we got a final exclamation point on the year, cementing the ugly ending with a good old fashioned butt whooping. Until Wojo gets a win in the tournament, that will continue to be a big missing line on his resume.
Steve Lavin was a brilliant coach...cuz he won a few games in March.
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It seems like the best thing about Wojo's tenure is always the next few years. I'd just like to finally experience one of them.
Getting big recruiting wins is great and is a good sign for the respect Wojo has nationally, but it's tough to not see the things materialize the way we keep thinking/hoping they will during the season. And sure, we've been fine the last few years. We've made some tourney appearances and notched a few marquee wins. We have certainly not been a bad program by any stretch. But I think most of us had a little higher expectations than what we've gotten in the last few years.
And crapshoot or not, March matters. If we would have made the second weekend last year, a lot of the frustrations of the late season collapse would have been erased. Instead, we got a final exclamation point on the year, cementing the ugly ending with a good old fashioned butt whooping. Until Wojo gets a win in the tournament, that will continue to be a big missing line on his resume.
The crapshoot stuff is a red herring. In five years Wojo has played one NCAA tournament game as the higher seed. That's the problem.
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Steve Lavin was a brilliant coach...cuz he won a few games in March.
In his time at UCLA, from 1996 to 2003, he compiled a record of 145–78.
From 1989 to 2002 as an assistant and head coach, Lavin participated in 13 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.
During Lavin's tenure as a head coach, he was one of only two coaches in the country to lead a team to five NCAA Regional Semifinals (Sweet 16's) in six seasons - the other coach being Duke's Mike Krzyzewski.
Lavin's record at UCLA in the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament was 10-1. His winning percentage (90.9%) in the first two rounds is second only to Dean Smith in NCAA Tournament history.
Lavin is the only college coach to have defeated the No. 1 team in the country in four consecutive collegiate seasons: Stanford in 2000 and 2001, Kansas in 2002 and Arizona in 2003.
Lavin guided UCLA to six consecutive seasons of 20 or more wins, as well as six consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.[5]
As head coach at UCLA, Lavin and his staff recruited and signed the No. 1 rated recruiting class in the country in 1998 and 2001.[citation needed] Lavin signed seven McDonald's High School All-Americans.
Thirteen of Lavin's former UCLA players became roster members of NBA teams: Trevor Ariza, Matt Barnes, Baron Davis, Dan Gadzuric, Ryan Hollins, Jason Kapono, Earl Watson, Jerome Moiso, Charles O'Bannon, Jelani McCoy, Toby Bailey, Dijon Thompson, and J.R. Henderson.
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OK, a couple of rebuttal observations and then I'll sit back and read:
1) From what I have seen so far this year, Brother Goose is basically right. The leading edge indicators after four games show a team that's going to struggle on offense, get beat on the boards and have their best scorer double-teamed most of the time. I noted earlier, beating Marquette means taking Markus out of his game and making everyone else beat you.
2) Things can change, I agree, and there's enough examples of this over the years to suggest the sample size could be skewed. A burst out over the next 10 days and a lot of us may be feeling differently. But this team has yet to put together 40 minutes of solid basketball. Indeed, the best 20 minutes it played in a long time was the 20 minutes where it caught and then beat Purdue. That's it.
3) I get that Wojo's strategy in the Robert Morris game was to force the rest of the team into doing things they don't want to do. The positive is, it worked. The negative is that despite being an experienced team, Wojo had to risk a possible humiliation at the hands of a team that could not beat University of Illinois-Chicago. I suppose that's what games like Robert Morris are for but good grief, it's like Halloween man.
4) One of the things that I think would serve Wojo well would be to find a former D1 head coach and have him come in either as an assistant or as a well paid consultant. Someone has to assume responsibility for in-game adjustments and has to somehow introduce Wojo to alternative offensive theories.
Ultimately, I'm OK if I'm wrong. I want us to be feared again. But like a lot of people in here, I'm scared at what I see. I'm candidly scared at what I am seeing but, hopefully, someone will be calling me out in a few weeks!
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The crapshoot stuff is a red herring. In five years Wojo has played one NCAA tournament game as the higher seed. That's the problem.
I think this part of the disconnect between the "Fire Wojo" crowd and the "Keep Wojo" crowd. One looks at the whole five years, the other looks the last three.
Personal opinion: Once it was confirmed that 3/4 of the members of the 2014 class were decommitting, I anticipated that it would take three years for us to get a tournament worthy team. Maybe a great coach could have done it in two, but I don't think the ghost of Al McGuire with Coach K and Jay Wright as assistants could have gotten to the tournament in year one. I had no expectations the first two years.
Since those two years, we have gone NCAA 10, NIT 2, NCAA 5. Not great but certainly not bad. If we add another NCAA single digit seed this season, that's a solid four year cycle. Add a great recruiting class and I'm optimistic.
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4) One of the things that I think would serve Wojo well would be to find a former D1 head coach and have him come in either as an assistant or as a well paid consultant. Someone has to assume responsibility for in-game adjustments and has to somehow introduce Wojo to alternative offensive theories.
I said this in a conversation I had with my dad yesterday. Wojo needs to find himself a Hank Raymonds, a Jerry Wainwright, a wily old Xs-and-Os guy that can strategize and gameplan.
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I said this in a conversation I had with my dad yesterday. Wojo needs to find himself a Hank Raymonds, a Jerry Wainwright, a wily old Xs-and-Os guy that can strategize and gameplan.
But what position would Jerry Wainwright play in the lunch time games at the Al?
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I said this in a conversation I had with my dad yesterday. Wojo needs to find himself a Hank Raymonds, a Jerry Wainwright, a wily old Xs-and-Os guy that can strategize and gameplan.
Like a Rob Judson?
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It seems like the best thing about Wojo's tenure is always the next few years. I'd just like to finally experience one of them.
Getting big recruiting wins is great and is a good sign for the respect Wojo has nationally, but it's tough to not see the things materialize the way we keep thinking/hoping they will during the season. And sure, we've been fine the last few years. We've made some tourney appearances and notched a few marquee wins. We have certainly not been a bad program by any stretch. But I think most of us had a little higher expectations than what we've gotten in the last few years.
And crapshoot or not, March matters. If we would have made the second weekend last year, a lot of the frustrations of the late season collapse would have been erased. Instead, we got a final exclamation point on the year, cementing the ugly ending with a good old fashioned butt whooping. Until Wojo gets a win in the tournament, that will continue to be a big missing line on his resume.
We were a pouty insurrection away from experiencing it last year. Amazing how people can’t see that. It cost MU a BigEast championship.
The insurrectionists also made for a horrible matchup vs Murray State. No foot speed to defend Ja and his team.
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In his time at UCLA, from 1996 to 2003, he compiled a record of 145–78.
From 1989 to 2002 as an assistant and head coach, Lavin participated in 13 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.
During Lavin's tenure as a head coach, he was one of only two coaches in the country to lead a team to five NCAA Regional Semifinals (Sweet 16's) in six seasons - the other coach being Duke's Mike Krzyzewski.
Lavin's record at UCLA in the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament was 10-1. His winning percentage (90.9%) in the first two rounds is second only to Dean Smith in NCAA Tournament history.
Lavin is the only college coach to have defeated the No. 1 team in the country in four consecutive collegiate seasons: Stanford in 2000 and 2001, Kansas in 2002 and Arizona in 2003.
Lavin guided UCLA to six consecutive seasons of 20 or more wins, as well as six consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.[5]
As head coach at UCLA, Lavin and his staff recruited and signed the No. 1 rated recruiting class in the country in 1998 and 2001.[citation needed] Lavin signed seven McDonald's High School All-Americans.
Thirteen of Lavin's former UCLA players became roster members of NBA teams: Trevor Ariza, Matt Barnes, Baron Davis, Dan Gadzuric, Ryan Hollins, Jason Kapono, Earl Watson, Jerome Moiso, Charles O'Bannon, Jelani McCoy, Toby Bailey, Dijon Thompson, and J.R. Henderson.
You're including assistant coaching? Come on.
The man had great talent, would consistently finish 3rd through 6th in a so-so Pac 10 with horrific losses in the regular season, but got to the Sweet 16 a bunch so he was a great coach? Drove UCLA fans here crazy.
20 to 30 point losses to Ball State, Cal, Oregon, Zona, Arizona State multiple times, a couple of 40 point losses to Duke and UNC....team was loaded with 5 star kids, #1 recruiting classes, future NBA players and in all that time ONE PAC 10 championship. ONE. That's how brutal he was as a coach.
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We were a pouty insurrection away from experiencing it last year. Amazing how people can’t see that. It cost MU a BigEast championship.
The insurrectionists also made for a horrible matchup vs Murray State. No foot speed to defend Ja and his team.
Ja is abusing pros nightly right now.
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I think this part of the disconnect between the "Fire Wojo" crowd and the "Keep Wojo" crowd. One looks at the whole five years, the other looks the last three.
Personal opinion: Once it was confirmed that 3/4 of the members of the 2014 class were decommitting, I anticipated that it would take three years for us to get a tournament worthy team. Maybe a great coach could have done it in two, but I don't think the ghost of Al McGuire with Coach K and Jay Wright as assistants could have gotten to the tournament in year one. I had no expectations the first two years.
Since those two years, we have gone NCAA 10, NIT 2, NCAA 5. Not great but certainly not bad. If we add another NCAA single digit seed this season, that's a solid four year cycle. Add a great recruiting class and I'm optimistic.
Well, I never said Fire Wojo. Anyone who criticizes the coach gets thrown into that camp though, because it's easier to defend Wojo against that argument.
We can punt year one, but year two had the best recruit in 30 years and yet they couldn't muster a NIT bid. Year three could've been a nice start, but then we regressed to the NIT in year four. Last year's team was really good...until the locker room imploded. Not a great look for someone who took until Year 5 to break into the Top 25. Meanwhile the previous two coaches achieved much greater success with their own players at the same juncture. Now we have a preseason first team all American senior and look like an 8-9 seed. It's hard to get as excited about our incoming recruits when the all time leading scorer hasn't made a postseason dent.
But like I said, I don't think he should get fired. He's gonna do enough to keep his job for a few more years at least. But while you may be optimistic, I think we'll be having this same conversation in year seven.
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Small Orange
I would take bets that this team is on outside looking in come March. Way too many holes and Howard cannot carry a team on his back without a couple more options.
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We were a pouty insurrection away from experiencing it last year. Amazing how people can’t see that. It cost MU a BigEast championship.
The insurrectionists also made for a horrible matchup vs Murray State. No foot speed to defend Ja and his team.
I'm still not seeing that. An insurrection, one player who quit trying his hardest, two guys who were a horrible matchup, and yet we kept playing them all the way through? A coach should keep control over his team even if it means benching a couple starters. It's not like playing them helped anyway since we lost all our games after their insurrection and they left the team anyway.
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Goose-
Agreed that this is not a NCAA team, and I don't think it will be much of a debate come Selection Sunday. If MU is a 8-9 seed, that would be Wojo's greatest achievement.
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Ja is abusing pros nightly right now.
I guess that excuses getting beat by 19 points (in a game that wasn't even that close) to a team that lost by 28 points in the next round.
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Warrior of Law
If Wojo gets this team to NCAA it will be a helluva of a coaching job. I would tip my cap to him.
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I said this in a conversation I had with my dad yesterday. Wojo needs to find himself a Hank Raymonds, a Jerry Wainwright, a wily old Xs-and-Os guy that can strategize and gameplan.
If wojo needs to find another coach to help on adjustments then we dont need wojo as coach.
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You're including assistant coaching? Come on.
The man had great talent, would consistently finish 3rd through 6th in a so-so Pac 10 with horrific losses in the regular season, but got to the Sweet 16 a bunch so he was a great coach? Drove UCLA fans here crazy.
20 to 30 point losses to Ball State, Cal, Oregon, Zona, Arizona State multiple times, a couple of 40 point losses to Duke and UNC....team was loaded with 5 star kids, #1 recruiting classes, future NBA players and in all that time ONE PAC 10 championship. ONE. That's how brutal he was as a coach.
His head coaching resume is there if you bothered to read it. More NCAA wins than Wojo for the same number of years.
Every coach drives fans crazy. Hardly a revelation. Grow up.
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Ja is abusing pros nightly right now.
Why does this even matter? So MU lost to Murray State because Morant was a good player, or because it was a crap shoot? I guess having good players and good coaching does matter. Florida State didnt seem to have a problem with him.
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I'm still not seeing that. An insurrection, one player who quit trying his hardest, two guys who were a horrible matchup, and yet we kept playing them all the way through? A coach should keep control over his team even if it means benching a couple starters. It's not like playing them helped anyway since we lost all our games after their insurrection and they left the team anyway.
Wojo was in a very tough spot. When his successful career is over, he will write a book about what he learned from coaching...and last season would figure prominently. I’d bet there would be an entire chapter on managing fragile egos and helicopter parents.
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" I’d bet there would be an entire chapter on managing fragile egos and helicopter parents."
that's the whole book right there...with a forward by tim maymon, dedicated to david and steph ;)
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Agree with the strategy.
Luckily for Marquette, we have one of the great players in basketball history in Kobe.
And an all-time MU great Brendan Bailey
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Wojo was in a very tough spot. When his successful career is over, he will write a book about what he learned from coaching...and last season would figure prominently. I’d bet there would be an entire chapter on managing fragile egos and helicopter parents.
A book or a PowerPoint presentation?
I kid I kid. I get that theres nothing he can do now but learn from it. But that's part of why he hasn't earned a full benefit of the doubt from me yet
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And an all-time MU great Brendan Bailey
JFC, lay off the current players.
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Wojo was in a very tough spot. When his successful career is over, he will write a book about what he learned from coaching...and last season would figure prominently. I’d bet there would be an entire chapter on managing fragile egos and helicopter parents.
Sounds like a real page turner.
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Wojo was in a very tough spot. When his successful career is over, he will write a book about what he learned from coaching...and last season would figure prominently. I’d bet there would be an entire chapter on managing fragile egos and helicopter parents.
Didn’t Sam, Joey, and Mr. Hauser already write it down for him?
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(x) Non-conference stinker to inferior opponent (UW-Madison) Really?????
Look Porky understands the frustration and that game definitely sucked but not being a Wisconsinite or even a Midwesterner, Porky's take on the rivalry is more measured because the notion that UW Madison is an "inferior opponent" seems flat out unfair. Less athletic? Sure! Inferior? Come On! This whole thread is basically about how we're not as good everyone thinks, at least so far, and say what you will about Wojo, but his record against UW Madison is solid. Would anyone really want to trade a W at the Kohl for a home loss to Bobby Mo? Porky wouldn't! That's for damn sure!
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Goose-
Agreed that this is not a NCAA team, and I don't think it will be much of a debate come Selection Sunday. If MU is a 8-9 seed, that would be Wojo's greatest achievement.
Happy to put $ on us not being a tourney team. Holla
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Small Orange
I would take bets that this team is on outside looking in come March. Way too many holes and Howard cannot carry a team on his back without a couple more options.
$200, I'm in.
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Yea, I don't have the kind of money that Jay Bee has, but I would bet that this is a tourney team. I still have no idea how we've gone from "this team will win a minimum of one NCAA game this season" to "this team is on the outside looking in come March", in exactly 4 games.
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I said this in a conversation I had with my dad yesterday. Wojo needs to find himself a Hank Raymonds, a Jerry Wainwright, a wily old Xs-and-Os guy that can strategize and gameplan.
Of course, Wojo would have to listen to that assistant.
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Well, I never said Fire Wojo. Anyone who criticizes the coach gets thrown into that camp though, because it's easier to defend Wojo against that argument.
We can punt year one, but year two had the best recruit in 30 years and yet they couldn't muster a NIT bid. Year three could've been a nice start, but then we regressed to the NIT in year four. Last year's team was really good...until the locker room imploded. Not a great look for someone who took until Year 5 to break into the Top 25. Meanwhile the previous two coaches achieved much greater success with their own players at the same juncture. Now we have a preseason first team all American senior and look like an 8-9 seed. It's hard to get as excited about our incoming recruits when the all time leading scorer hasn't made a postseason dent.
But like I said, I don't think he should get fired. He's gonna do enough to keep his job for a few more years at least. But while you may be optimistic, I think we'll be having this same conversation in year seven.
But wait....what about all the raves about "Wojo has us trending upward"?
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Goose-
Agreed that this is not a NCAA team, and I don't think it will be much of a debate come Selection Sunday. If MU is a 8-9 seed, that would be Wojo's greatest achievement.
So much negativity. When I first came to this message board two years ago there was a member here saying we would not make the NIT. Last year members saying no NCAA after the Indiana loss.
It is November everyone. Johnson banged up, Greg coming off an injury, McEwen did not play last year. Let these guys play a few games.
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Last year members saying no NCAA after the Indiana loss.
Yeah, some of that should be must reading for those who already have decided that this team is bad.
Hell, they should just have to read the Purdue game thread during the first half.
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A book or a PowerPoint presentation?
I kid I kid. I get that theres nothing he can do now but learn from it. But that's part of why he hasn't earned a full benefit of the doubt from me yet
Totally fair response. I would argue that Wojo and staff wouldn’t be getting the recruiting hauls he has (especially post-Hausergate) if kids and their folks weren’t high on where we are headed as a program.
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The season is young and could still turn out very nicely. That said, not a ton to be excited about at this point.
If we miss the NCAA Wojo should be gone. Full stop. Losing recruits or not, at some point you have to cut losses. 90% were expecting that from Wojo in the threshold poll.
But what I fully expect is another mediocre, slightly-below expectations season. A C+/B- season that keeps Wojo his job and gives enough fodder to the "upward trend" crowd ("2 NCAAs in a row! Progress!). The bubble will be weak, like always. Markus will go off enough to get us a few signature wins. We make the tourney in the 7-10 range and lose our first game. That will be enough for most.
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The reason for the frequent turnovers and poor shooting (4 3s made) is that everyone outside of MH is simply a role/bench player. I watched the UW-UWGB game, and everyone on UW's main guys was better than MU's main guys. Really discouraging. Frankly, if it wasn't for the Dawson commitment, the chatter about Wojo would become a lot noisier.
This is why you don't evaluate anything with definitive conclusions based off of one game. Did you by chance catch the Badgers loss to Richmond last night?
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And an all-time MU great Brendan Bailey
he ain't done yet-hope he pastes this on his locker
still not cool
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he ain't done yet-hope he pastes this on his locker
still not cool
You do realize the difference between making light of the poster who claimed this versus ripping on the young man, right? We all hope BB steps into the void left by the Hausers' departures but that doesn't mean the proclamation (a very "Magic-Dawson-esquese" one no less), won't and can't be critiqued.
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So much negativity. When I first came to this message board two years ago there was a member here saying we would not make the NIT. Last year members saying no NCAA after the Indiana loss.
It is November everyone. Johnson banged up, Greg coming off an injury, McEwen did not play last year. Let these guys play a few games.
Brother Dad, many of us have been following Warrior basketball for decades. Perhaps you have too.
We know there has been injuries. Trust me, your point has some merit. But we also this is a senior-led team and the core of the team has been together for some time. The problems they are having should not be happening.
The reason we're so down is that we're seeing the same problems that have concerned us for several years: the hero ball, the lack of meaningful contribution from too much of our line-up, the lack of defensive steals, the turnovers etc. The Wisconsin game disgusted us. The Robert Morris game scared us.
We are angry with our coach for allowing Hausershima to happen. He should have managed his locker room more effectively. We question the quality of this coach's offense and his ability to use his center. We see a lack of in-game adjustments. We actually want our coach to succeed and while there is division between the fire Wojo crowd and the let him develop crowd, we're all afraid if it does not work out, we're all condemned to yet another rebuild. Nobody wants that, especially with what we have coming in next year.
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we're all condemned to yet another rebuild. Nobody wants that, especially with what we have coming in next year.
Do you see any scenario -- beyond some kind of criminal or seriously unethical activity -- in which Wojo is fired after this season?
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When I first came to this message board two years ago
LOL. OK, Hoopy.
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Brother Dad, many of us have been following Warrior basketball for decades. Perhaps you have too.
We know there has been injuries. Trust me, your point has some merit. But we also this is a senior-led team and the core of the team has been together for some time. The problems they are having should not be happening.
The reason we're so down is that we're seeing the same problems that have concerned us for several years: the hero ball, the lack of meaningful contribution from too much of our line-up, the lack of defensive steals, the turnovers etc. The Wisconsin game disgusted us. The Robert Morris game scared us.
We are angry with our coach for allowing Hausershima to happen. He should have managed his locker room more effectively. We question the quality of this coach's offense and his ability to use his center. We see a lack of in-game adjustments. We actually want our coach to succeed and while there is division between the fire Wojo crowd and the let him develop crowd, we're all afraid if it does not work out, we're all condemned to yet another rebuild. Nobody wants that, especially with what we have coming in next year.
i'm trying to give wojo every benefit of the doubt and want him to succeed very badly for obvious reasons(he wins WE WIN) but this sums up a whole bunch of threads/post very nicely
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dgies
Cheeks fully understands this and loves to rile folks up.
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dgies
Cheeks fully understands this and loves to rile folks up.
Hence the term "hoopaloopin'. Even he can't believe more than 50% of the crud he pulls out of his rectal cavity.
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Yea, I don't have the kind of money that Jay Bee has, but I would bet that this is a tourney team. I still have no idea how we've gone from "this team will win a minimum of one NCAA game this season" to "this team is on the outside looking in come March", in exactly 4 games.
Uh, we watched them play? I wasn't in the camp of minimum one NCAA win. I was hoping for one NCAA win.
I have no idea what this team is going to be by the end of the year, so I personally wouldn't bet one way or the other. We figured we'd be better on defense, worse on offense but how much of each is hard to say until you watch them play. So far the decrease of offense is greater than the increase on defense, plus we don't appear to be as good a rebounding team. That certainly can change, but product on the floor at this point has not been all that impressive.
We have the trip to Europe which should have given us a leg up early, too, I would have thought.
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We were a pouty insurrection away from experiencing it last year. Amazing how people can’t see that. It cost MU a BigEast championship.
The insurrectionists also made for a horrible matchup vs Murray State. No foot speed to defend Ja and his team.
Doesn't a lot of this blame fall on the coach, though? Shouldn't he have stepped in when he was first getting negative feedback from Joey and/or Sam? Managing the players is just as big a part of coaching as managing the X's and O's. And with the fallout from last year, it seems clear Wojo still has some work to do to improve the personnel management piece.
As far as the bad matchup against Murray State, it wasn't just Ja Morant that beat us. And Sam and Joey weren't the only ones from MU who were exploited in the gameplan. All their starters showed up that day, and we had several dud performances. The second half was just awful, and a decent amount of that blame has to fall on the coach.
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i'm trying to give wojo every benefit of the doubt and want him to succeed very badly for obvious reasons(he wins WE WIN) but this sums up a whole bunch of threads/post very nicely
Yeah, this is the camp I'm in. The UW and RM games aren't one-offs, they are just two more data points in a 5 year evaluation. I really want us to win, and I would love if Wojo is the guy to do that, but having a RM game with an all-American, a junior transfer, a redshirt-senior 3, a 22 year old sophmore 4 and a defensive beast junior center is a real head-scratcher. For years we've been hearing how "youth" and "inexperience" were the culprit - well, that certainly isn't the case now.
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Uh, we watched them play? I wasn't in the camp of minimum one NCAA win. I was hoping for one NCAA win.
I have no idea what this team is going to be by the end of the year, so I personally wouldn't bet one way or the other. We figured we'd be better on defense, worse on offense but how much of each is hard to say until you watch them play. So far the decrease of offense is greater than the increase on defense, plus we don't appear to be as good a rebounding team. That certainly can change, but product on the floor at this point has not been all that impressive.
We have the trip to Europe which should have given us a leg up early, too, I would have thought.
This is a reasonable take.
It's also still very early.
Our third game last season was the beatdown at Indiana, and the 2018-19 season was all but written off by many Scoopers. Then, two games later, came the extended drought against Kansas, and many of those who were had been trying to reserve judgment piled on: Wojo's Warriors officially sucked.
And of course there was the 2012-13 reaction after the Fla and UWGB losses. Not to mention the way Lockett and Katin were constantly ripped in their early going as grad transfers.
My main concerns going into this season were offense outside of Markus, rebounding and turnovers, and all of those shortcomings have reared their ugly heads. Nevertheless, although I'm certainly not predicting a spectacular season based on what we've seen so far, I have learned not to write off an entire season based on a handful of results.
I'm trying to stay both optimistic and pragmatic.
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This is a reasonable take.
It's also still very early.
Our third game last season was the beatdown at Indiana, and the 2018-19 season was all but written off by many Scoopers. Then, two games later, came the extended drought against Kansas, and many of those who were had been trying to reserve judgment piled on: Wojo's Warriors officially sucked.
And of course there was the 2012-13 reaction after the Fla and UWGB losses. Not to mention the way Lockett and Katin were constantly ripped in their early going as grad transfers.
My main concerns going into this season were offense outside of Markus, rebounding and turnovers, and all of those shortcomings have reared their ugly heads. Nevertheless, although I'm certainly not predicting a spectacular season based on what we've seen so far, I have learned not to write off an entire season based on a handful of results.
I'm trying to stay both optimistic and pragmatic.
Omg 82 you are like a broken record, yet somehow even more boring.
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Uh, we watched them play? I wasn't in the camp of minimum one NCAA win. I was hoping for one NCAA win.
I have no idea what this team is going to be by the end of the year, so I personally wouldn't bet one way or the other. We figured we'd be better on defense, worse on offense but how much of each is hard to say until you watch them play. So far the decrease of offense is greater than the increase on defense, plus we don't appear to be as good a rebounding team. That certainly can change, but product on the floor at this point has not been all that impressive.
We have the trip to Europe which should have given us a leg up early, too, I would have thought.
We've played 4 games. We were favored to win our 3 home games, we won our 3 home games. We were dogs in our 1 road game, we lost our 1 road game.
You want to talk individual performances?
Theo's biggest complaint all last year was that he was always in foul trouble. He's dropped his fouls per 40 from 8 to 4.
Biggest question mark around Kobe was whether or not he could translate to high major. He's increased his scoring, rebounding, assists, ft%, and is shooting almost 65% from 3.
One of the biggest complaints for Markus was that he always had the ball. He's playing more off the ball this year.
BB, and Sacar have yet to show any consistency this year, but they also started last year slow too. Greg and Jayce are both coming off injuries, and Jayce has played a grand total of 10 minutes. How anyone can use that to draw a conclusion is baffling to me.
Yes TOs are a problem, yes consistency from our role players has to get better, but we're exactly where all the unbiased "experts" thought we'd be, and as bad as we looked against RM, all that game will be come Selection Sunday is approximately 1/35th of our total efficiency stats, and a green W in the Q3 or Q4 column.
We way over-analyze our team, but if we were to do the same for just about any other Beast team we could find a similar amount of flaws. It's November. Chill.
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This is a reasonable take.
It's also still very early.
Our third game last season was the beatdown at Indiana, and the 2018-19 season was all but written off by many Scoopers. Then, two games later, came the extended drought against Kansas, and many of those who were had been trying to reserve judgment piled on: Wojo's Warriors officially sucked.
And of course there was the 2012-13 reaction after the Fla and UWGB losses. Not to mention the way Lockett and Katin were constantly ripped in their early going as grad transfers.
My main concerns going into this season were offense outside of Markus, rebounding and turnovers, and all of those shortcomings have reared their ugly heads. Nevertheless, although I'm certainly not predicting a spectacular season based on what we've seen so far, I have learned not to write off an entire season based on a handful of results.
I'm trying to stay both optimistic and pragmatic.
Yeah, last year was a real rollercoaster.
I think everyone expects there to be some bumps, especially early on, but there is a difference between bad nights (shooting off, kids with the flu, etc.) and structural problems. I think the concern is that UW and RM might have been more the latter.
I agree there is plenty of season left and being 3-1 with a loss @UW doesn't mean the season is in flames. But I'd almost be feeling better about the season at 2-2 if it meant we had hung tough (but lost close) to both Purdue and UW but also stomped RM.
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i'm trying to give wojo every benefit of the doubt and want him to succeed very badly for obvious reasons(he wins WE WIN) but this sums up a whole bunch of threads/post very nicely
Yup. Critics of Wojo are often framed as being in the "FIRE WOJO!" crowd or that they're rooting against him or that they never liked him because he went to Duke. Fact is we're in Year Six and the results have been underwhelming and that's on Wojo. That's where the dissatisfaction stems from, and it's warranted. We all want him to do better, but the question is, can he?
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https://www.muscoop.com/index.php?topic=56914.0
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The season is young and could still turn out very nicely. That said, not a ton to be excited about at this point.
If we miss the NCAA Wojo should be gone. Full stop. Losing recruits or not, at some point you have to cut losses. 90% were expecting that from Wojo in the threshold poll.
But what I fully expect is another mediocre, slightly-below expectations season. A C+/B- season that keeps Wojo his job and gives enough fodder to the "upward trend" crowd ("2 NCAAs in a row! Progress!). The bubble will be weak, like always. Markus will go off enough to get us a few signature wins. We make the tourney in the 7-10 range and lose our first game. That will be enough for most.
Best recruiting class coming in a long time and you are saying this...lol. Set the program back for another 5 years.
How is Arkansas football doing? Tennessee football? Etc etc. They all made similar decisions and are struggling mightily.
Wojo will be here next year regardless of what happens this year. Some of you really have to embrace this reality...unless he leaves on his own.
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Yeah, this is the camp I'm in. The UW and RM games aren't one-offs, they are just two more data points in a 5 year evaluation. I really want us to win, and I would love if Wojo is the guy to do that, but having a RM game with an all-American, a junior transfer, a redshirt-senior 3, a 22 year old sophmore 4 and a defensive beast junior center is a real head-scratcher. For years we've been hearing how "youth" and "inexperience" were the culprit - well, that certainly isn't the case now.
I think you and others on the board are taking the RM game too much on its face. Markus played 26 minutes and was completely deferential--for a reason. People here keep saying that Wojo needs to coach more and that was a big coaching moment: making others actually play outside of Markus. Was it the result we wanted? No. But it was a win and hopefully something that helps people grow as a result.
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i wonder what michigan states "scoop" is saying today?
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/28167280/tom-izzo-apologizes-michigan-state-upset-loss
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I think you and others on the board are taking the RM game too much on its face. Markus played 26 minutes and was completely deferential--for a reason. People here keep saying that Wojo needs to coach more and that was a big coaching moment: making others actually play outside of Markus. Was it the result we wanted? No. But it was a win and hopefully something that helps people grow as a result.
Outstanding perspective.
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You do realize the difference between making light of the poster who claimed this versus ripping on the young man, right? We all hope BB steps into the void left by the Hausers' departures but that doesn't mean the proclamation (a very "Magic-Dawson-esquese" one no less), won't and can't be critiqued.
Ha thank you, exactly what I was going for
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Thank you, JB, for that entertaining trip down memory lane.
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Omg 82 you are like a broken record, yet somehow even more boring.
Maybe I should go into game threads and rip this Marquette player for sucking, that Marquette player for being a dog, and the other Marquette player for being the worst. That's somehow much less boring.
Then, when we win, I can pretend I never said any of it. How exciting that would be!
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Maybe I should go into game threads and rip this Marquette player for sucking, that Marquette player for being a dog, and the other Marquette player for being the worst. That's somehow much less boring.
Then, when we win, I can pretend I never said any of it. How exciting that would be!
It's only exciting if you have your posts littered with multiple spelling and grammatical errors in the process.
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I dislike most of you
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It's only exciting if you have your posts littered with multiple spelling and grammatical errors in the process.
Mayb dem went 2 StN a1nal
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Best recruiting class coming in a long time and you are saying this...lol. Set the program back for another 5 years.
How is Arkansas football doing? Tennessee football? Etc etc. They all made similar decisions and are struggling mightily.
Wojo will be here next year regardless of what happens this year. Some of you really have to embrace this reality...unless he leaves on his own.
And you need to embrace the reality that Wojo will continue to be criticized until he has some post season success. As he should be. Don’t like it? Root for another team.
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I dislike most of you
I agree with this analysis.
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Brother Dad, many of us have been following Warrior basketball for decades. Perhaps you have too.
We know there has been injuries. Trust me, your point has some merit. But we also this is a senior-led team and the core of the team has been together for some time. The problems they are having should not be happening.
The reason we're so down is that we're seeing the same problems that have concerned us for several years: the hero ball, the lack of meaningful contribution from too much of our line-up, the lack of defensive steals, the turnovers etc. The Wisconsin game disgusted us. The Robert Morris game scared us.
We are angry with our coach for allowing Hausershima to happen. He should have managed his locker room more effectively. We question the quality of this coach's offense and his ability to use his center. We see a lack of in-game adjustments. We actually want our coach to succeed and while there is division between the fire Wojo crowd and the let him develop crowd, we're all afraid if it does not work out, we're all condemned to yet another rebuild. Nobody wants that, especially with what we have coming in next year.
I agree with this analysis
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We way over-analyze our team, but if we were to do the same for just about any other Beast team we could find a similar amount of flaws. It's November. Chill.
Might as well just not log on until February, huh? Or maybe compliments only until 2020? Even better, we could just not watch games until conference play, since all the stuff going on right now isn't really all that important.
Sure, most conclusions drawn now are premature. But comments about what's actually happening are valid. Voicing concern about our offense is a perfectly fair response to the first 4 games. Wondering why we haven't seen improvement from some key guys is a pretty normal thing for fans. Why avoid talking about it?
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Might as well just not log on until February, huh? Or maybe compliments only until 2020? Even better, we could just not watch games until conference play, since all the stuff going on right now isn't really all that important.
Sure, most conclusions drawn now are premature. But comments about what's actually happening are valid. Voicing concern about our offense is a perfectly fair response to the first 4 games. Wondering why we haven't seen improvement from some key guys is a pretty normal thing for fans. Why avoid talking about it?
If you're just going to talk about the first four games, sure, go for it. I was just doing the exact same thing in a different thread. I'm seeing a lot of comments on the first 5 years of the Wojo regime though. If you're going to talk about games 8+ months and up, ago, maybe a postgame thread about the 4th game of the 2019-2020 season isn't the best place to do it?
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And you need to embrace the reality that Wojo will continue to be criticized until he has some post season success. As he should be. Don’t like it? Root for another team.
You realize that Wojo can't change this until the next postseason which is in March. Maybe you should focus on what he can control right now and not just criticize him. He has had a great recruiting class. He beat Purdue. He is going to be the coach until at least next year. Don't like it? Root for another team.
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I think you and others on the board are taking the RM game too much on its face. Markus played 26 minutes and was completely deferential--for a reason. People here keep saying that Wojo needs to coach more and that was a big coaching moment: making others actually play outside of Markus. Was it the result we wanted? No. But it was a win and hopefully something that helps people grow as a result.
I think that's exactly the face that myself and others are concerned about Wojo asked the team to play the Kenpom 300 ranked team sans Markus. And the only reason they eeked out a win was thanks to some home cookin' by the refs. Markus can only take us so far and right now there is major concern about the supporting cast.
Hopefully it was just a blip. But we'll see. Nothing else to do but BS about it on a message board until Thursday gives us something else to talk about.
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You realize that Wojo can't change this until the next postseason which is in March. Maybe you should focus on what he can control right now and not just criticize him. He has had a great recruiting class. He beat Purdue. He is going to be the coach until at least next year. Don't like it? Root for another team.
This is a great point. If the gripe is "he has no March success" any such criticisms are useless for the next 4 months.
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You realize that Wojo can't change this until the next postseason which is in March. Maybe you should focus on what he can control right now and not just criticize him. He has had a great recruiting class. He beat Purdue. He is going to be the coach until at least next year. Don't like it? Root for another team.
He's going to get criticized heavily after losses either way. The people still in the 'wait and see' camp has dwindled after the collapse last season. I'd imagine the 'put up or shut up' crowd will be out in force if the losses pile up. Hopefully we won't have to worry about that.
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I think that's exactly the face that myself and others are concerned about Wojo asked the team to play the Kenpom 300 ranked team sans Markus. And the only reason they eeked out a win was thanks to some home cookin' by the refs. Markus can only take us so far and right now there is major concern about the supporting cast.
Hopefully it was just a blip. But we'll see. Nothing else to do but BS about it on a message board until Thursday gives us something else to talk about.
My business partner's son is a Pac-10 Conf Wrestling champion and All-American. He has a very good chance to be NCAA Champion. He came into our office one day and I asked him, "how do you get up for a match when you know you are going to absolutely smoke your opponent" . His response was very interesting in that he said he basically goes into the match with one hand tied behind his back. He will only do 1-2 moves that he knows he needs to work on and he knows if he doesn't execute on those 1-2 moves then he might lose. So all week long in practice he focuses on those things. Even though he knows at any point he could open up the playbook and destroy his opponent, he doesn't because for him it is about getting better for when he plays the guy he will actually struggle against.
I think that is a very similar story to the RM game. Wojo sent his players out there with one arm tied behind their back so that they could practice and be ready for the future. That is coaching and guess what MU didn't lose. No one will care about the RM game in March but it forced the team to figure out how to score, how to play without Markus, and how Markus needs to incorporate passing into his game. It wasn't going to be pretty but in the end it didn't matter.
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Honest question: What do you think of the "play" we frequently run where Markus stands in the corner doing nothing while the other 4 guys try to get a shot? What is its purpose?How does this help him show he's a complete player? Is Wojo trying to prove to the rest of the team how lost they would be without Markus?
Right before he blew up in the second half, Edwards was standing against the sideline on the weak side, 40 feet from the ball. ]Crean did the same thing, so it is clearly great coaching. (http://[color=teal)
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And you need to embrace the reality that Wojo will continue to be criticized until he has some post season success. As he should be. Don’t like it? Root for another team.
Then all of you that feel this way, come back in March so we can enjoy the team now....he cannot have post season success until the post season, so the constant whining by some of you isn’t needed until then. Thanks
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During his entire Marquette coaching career, Wojo has never beaten Notre Dame.
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Hence the term "hoopaloopin'. Even he can't believe more than 50% of the crud he pulls out of his rectal cavity.
Did you know Idaho is called the birthplace of television?
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Yup. Critics of Wojo are often framed as being in the "FIRE WOJO!" crowd or that they're rooting against him or that they never liked him because he went to Duke. Fact is we're in Year Six and the results have been underwhelming and that's on Wojo. That's where the dissatisfaction stems from, and it's warranted. We all want him to do better, but the question is, can he?
Critics who say fire Wojo or the equivalent are framed for being in the fire Wojo crowd.
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Then all of you that feel this way, come back in March so we can enjoy the team now....he cannot have post season success until the post season, so the constant whining by some of you isn’t needed until then. Thanks
I also don’t like much of what I’ve seen the first four games of this season, but apparently the sample size is far too small to critique. So at this point, it looks like Wojo is above criticism.
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And you need to embrace the reality that Wojo will continue to be criticized until he has some post season success. As he should be. Don’t like it? Root for another team.
You sound like a “never Wojo-er”😄
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I also don’t like much of what I’ve seen the first four games of this season, but apparently the sample size is far too small to critique. So at this point, it looks like Wojo is above criticism.
We are 3-1, supposed to be 3-1. No one is above criticism, but you are now changing the goalposts and Mike & Scott Baio are not going to be happy.
More to the point, when the team plays well and it would seem you would be “happy” with what you see, you guys are almost never here...gone...dust...only to return when you “don’t like what you see”. In my opinion.
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You sound like a “never Wojo-er”😄
Not true. He wasn’t my first choice to take over the program. Howland was, though I understand why he wasn’t hired. Think he would’ve done great here, but that’s water under the bridge.
I was willing to roll with the punches when Wojo came aboard. First red flag was when he missed the postseason entirely with Henry on the team. Then came the blowout loss to South Carolina. Then we missed the tournament again in year four despite having maybe the three best 3 point shooters in the country on the same team. And then came last season’s collapse, followed by Hausershima.
Just more negatives than positives for me so far, especially when you factor in that Crean had a Final Four under his belt and Buzz had 8 NCAAT wins by the time they’d been here five years. Hopefully Wojo can achieve a similar level of success soon.
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Not true. He wasn’t my first choice to take over the program. Howland was, though I understand why he wasn’t hired. Think he would’ve done great here, but that’s water under the bridge.
I was willing to roll with the punches when Wojo came aboard. First red flag was when he missed the postseason entirely with Henry on the team. Then came the blowout loss to South Carolina. Then we missed the tournament again in year four despite having maybe the three best 3 point shooters in the country on the same team. And then came last season’s collapse, followed by Hausershima.
Just more negatives than positives for me so far, especially when you factor in that Crean had a Final Four under his belt and Buzz had 8 NCAAT wins by the time they’d been here five years. Wojo has a lot of work to do to get where his predecessors were at. Maybe he can start making up that ground this year.
Great take fully agree
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Not true. He wasn’t my first choice to take over the program. Howland was, though I understand why he wasn’t hired. Think he would’ve done great here, but that’s water under the bridge.
I was willing to roll with the punches when Wojo came aboard. First red flag was when he missed the postseason entirely with Henry on the team. Then came the blowout loss to South Carolina. Then we missed the tournament again in year four despite having maybe the three best 3 point shooters in the country on the same team. And then came last season’s collapse, followed by Hausershima.
Just more negatives than positives for me so far, especially when you factor in that Crean had a Final Four under his belt and Buzz had 8 NCAAT wins by the time they’d been here five years. Hopefully Wojo can achieve a similar level of success soon.
You realize Howland has only taken MSU to one tournament thus far and lost in the first round? They also have much lower recruiting academic standards than MU which should make his job down there easier.
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You realize Howland has only taken MSU to one tournament thus far and lost in the first round?
#crapshoot
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You realize Howland has only taken MSU to one tournament thus far and lost in the first round? They also have much lower recruiting academic standards than MU which should make his job down there easier.
Howland’s in his fifth year at MSU. Through four years, Wojo only had one first round NCAA tournament loss, too. This year, MSU is 6-1. Seems like he has them on a good trajectory.
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Howland’s in his fifth year at MSU. Through four years, Wojo only had one first round NCAA tournament loss, too. This year, MSU is 6-1. Seems like he has them on a good trajectory.
LOL, yeah. The loss was to the only P6 team they've played so far.
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Howland’s in his fifth year at MSU. Through four years, Wojo only had one first round NCAA tournament loss, too. This year, MSU is 6-1. Seems like he has them on a good trajectory.
Well, they do have wins over Sam Houston State, Tulane, Coastal, New Orleans, FIU and Louisiana Monroe. They lost to Villanova.
They should be pretty good this year, as should Marquette.
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#crapshoot
Exactly
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Well, they do have wins over Sam Houston State, Tulane, Coastal, New Orleans, FIU and Louisiana Monroe. They lost to Villanova.
They should be pretty good this year, as should Marquette.
As should Marquette? Bookmark this one
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As should Marquette? Bookmark this one
We all know where you stand...I know when to find Johnny when MU loses, otherwise he’s watching PAC 12 Network or on a hot date. Bundle up, cold front coming into California this week.
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This is a great point. If the gripe is "he has no March success" any such criticisms are useless for the next 4 months.
So criticisms of Wojo are now limited to only certain months? That's only fair game to bring up in March and maybe April? Come on, this is silly.
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I think that is a very similar story to the RM game. Wojo sent his players out there with one arm tied behind their back so that they could practice and be ready for the future. That is coaching and guess what MU didn't lose. No one will care about the RM game in March but it forced the team to figure out how to score, how to play without Markus, and how Markus needs to incorporate passing into his game. It wasn't going to be pretty but in the end it didn't matter.
I think there's a pretty significant difference between practicing on a weakness in order to improve and just surviving while playing with half the playbook. The gameplan and intention are the same, but the results aren't.
I'm not convinced that MU improved, as a team, from the Robert Morris game. It was nice to see some offensive improvement from Sacar and Brendan, but I don't think those pros outweigh the cons that led to a 19 point first half effort. The initial gameplan made sense, but when things weren't going well, I would have liked to have seen a plan B that gave our guys some confidence and built some momentum going into Orlando.
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I think there's a pretty significant difference between practicing on a weakness in order to improve and just surviving while playing with half the playbook. The gameplan and intention are the same, but the results aren't.
I'm not convinced that MU improved, as a team, from the Robert Morris game. It was nice to see some offensive improvement from Sacar and Brendan, but I don't think those pros outweigh the cons that led to a 19 point first half effort. The initial gameplan made sense, but when things weren't going well, I would have liked to have seen a plan B that gave our guys some confidence and built some momentum going into Orlando.
Winning by X in game 1 = momentum advantage in game 2? Seems so easy coach, thanks!
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So criticisms of Wojo are now limited to only certain months? That's only fair game to bring up in March and maybe April? Come on, this is silly.
That particular complaint? Yes. It's a straw man any other time.
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Winning by X in game 1 = momentum advantage in game 2? Seems so easy coach, thanks!
Exactly. When you have the best horse in a lesser race, and you are pointing towards a much bigger race, why would you whip and scrub your mount to build a 20 lg lead? Skillful trainers and coaches find the better part of the racetrack and avoid it in the prep races. Ever hear of “against the grain”? You can bet they will find it in the race that matters. Not only that, they end up wound like a spring from closing 10-wide last time on an inside-biased speed track. Or conversely, they are wound up to win after trying last race to maintain their speed on a deep, heavy rail, while the track was favoring wide closers. AGAINST THE GRAIN, folks.
I can tell you one thing. A good railbird wouldn’t miss what happened in the PURDUE game. The Equibase CHARTs would read something like this...
MARQUETTE stumbled to his knees at the break. Took up in traffic at the half mile mark. Languished in the back of the pack, far off of a slow early pace. After mild encouragement from rider, MARQUETTE began picking off horses one by one, mounting a furious wide rally, steadied slightly off heels of a rival, then dug in and continued his wide marauding move to win going away at the wire. As rider pleased.
We surely got something out of that Purdue race. The Wisconsin game was a Thorograph regression (bounce race) against a heated rival at their home track. There is no easy racing analogy to the RM game because our trainer seemed to purposely add weight, remove the rider’s crop, and run with no race day meds. You can bet he was pointing to an upcoming race series.
See you at the windows, punters.
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I mean you could be Wisconsin who lost to two mid majors in the last 2 days.
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That particular complaint? Yes. It's a straw man any other time.
If Al had 2 fewer losses in March of '77 there's a real chance we don't have his name on our jerseys, our court, or our on-campus arena (including a nice statue!). Winning in March absolutely matters, and coaches who can't get it done will draw criticism from the fanbase. All year long, and even many years afterward. You obviously don't like it, but that doesn't change the reality that winning in the postseason of any sport matters to fans.
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Winning by X in game 1 = momentum advantage in game 2? Seems so easy coach, thanks!
It's not winning by x. It's having success doing the things you set out to do in the gameplan. That's where I think the momentum builds. Hopefully we got enough of that in the second half against Robert Morris, but barely scraping by sure doesn't seem like we executed many things successfully.
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If Al had 2 fewer losses in March of '77 there's a real chance we don't have his name on our jerseys, our court, or our on-campus arena (including a nice statue!). Winning in March absolutely matters, and coaches who can't get it done will draw criticism from the fanbase. All year long, and even many years afterward. You obviously don't like it, but that doesn't change the reality that winning in the postseason of any sport matters to fans.
Sure it matters, but it’s not the only thing that matters, especially in college basketball. How you win ( cheating, etc), the regular season, etc also matter. Al also said that was nowhere close to his best team....best teams often don’t win in the NCAA tournament. Hank said the ‘78 team was better than ‘77 and they got bounced in the first game. If March is all that matters, why bother getting worked up until March?
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It's not winning by x. It's having success doing the things you set out to do in the gameplan. That's where I think the momentum builds. Hopefully we got enough of that in the second half against Robert Morris, but barely scraping by sure doesn't seem like we executed many things successfully.
I very much doubt your nebulous concept of momentum - good or bad - from a game against Robert Morris a week earlier will have any impact whatsoever on what happens in Orlando.
Marquette dominated in the second half against Purdue. How did the all important momentum from that help four days later in Madison?
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I dislike most of you
I dislike you for making me choke on my coffee as I read this post. Bravo!
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1. NRC: Bravo!
2. "Momentum? Momentum is the next day's starting pitcher." -- Earl Weaver
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If Al had 2 fewer losses in March of '77 there's a real chance we don't have his name on our jerseys, our court, or our on-campus arena (including a nice statue!). Winning in March absolutely matters, and coaches who can't get it done will draw criticism from the fanbase. All year long, and even many years afterward. You obviously don't like it, but that doesn't change the reality that winning in the postseason of any sport matters to fans.
I don't disagree with the former. But continually criticizing Wojo for something that can't change for 4 months even if the team plays perfectly, winning every game, is the definition of a straw man.
Does winning in March matter? Of course. But between now and Tuesday, March 17 at the minimum, there is nothing he can do to change that. Complaining about a lack of in-season results, gameplan issues, those are salient and timely gripes. I'm not anti-Wojo criticism, but complaining about something he can't change for months seems a disingenuous argument at best.
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What does not help Wojo/program IMO is that we really have played a sub par schedule and have not looked very good doing it. We have not played many games and the teams we have played are not marquee teams. I think that adds to my frustration. Last season there were three fun home games in December, all wins, and made for even anti Wojo guys to be optimistic.
Truthfully, I could not tell you the last time MU played a good game against a quality opponent. It has been bad performances for quite a few games and months since they looked like a NCAA team. It is hard to challenge any anti Wojo folks based off the last 10-15 games his team's have played.
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Truthfully, I could not tell you the last time MU played a good game against a quality opponent.
Well, Purdue was scheduled 18 months ago as part of a home-and-home; they were ranked high all last season and were No. 23 entering this season. After a poor first 17 minutes, we played brilliantly in the final 23 minutes. So hopefully you remember that one, as it was only 2 weeks ago.
I know the counter-argument is that we didn't play a full, complete good game against them. Look around basketball. Even the Dukes, Kentuckys and Michigan States have trouble playing 40 minutes of the kind of perfect basketball anti-Wojo-ites seem to expect. I saw Al's Warriors play lots and lots of games that involved great comebacks -- comebacks that were necessary because they were hardly 40 minutes of perfection. I guess if Wojo punched a guy, it would have make the Purdue comeback more legit?
I think we played a good game against Seton Hall in the BET last March, too. Unfortunately, stuff happened (some self-inflicted, some inflicted by others) to prevent finishing it with a win.
As for "quality opponents" ... as you know, Goose, unfortunately the schedule is made before we know exactly how good teams will be. Purdue was one example I already gave. K-State is another two-year commitment against a team that was top-15-quality at the time of the scheduling. Maryland, our likely opponent if we reach the Orlando final, is No. 5 in the country. Davidson is almost always tough. Wisconsin is an annual commitment.
And of course the Big East will offer plenty of opportunities for our heroes to play good games against quality opponents, as "experts" are saying it might be the best conference in the country this season.
Goose, I know you join me in hoping that we have lots of good games against quality opponents this season.
We Are Marquette!
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82
I agree with your post. I am only saying that we have not seen great ball played the home team, not many games played to date and really no opponent that made you want to cancel all plans to watch on TV. I think that those three factors have thrown gas onto my frustration. Couple of well played games against BE would do wonders for the faithful.
Also, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
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82
I agree with your post. I am only saying that we have not seen great ball played the home team, not many games played to date and really no opponent that made you want to cancel all plans to watch on TV. I think that those three factors have thrown gas onto my frustration. Couple of well played games against BE would do wonders for the faithful.
Also, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
Purdue is 10th in Kenpom. As of now, that's an elite win and a better one than most teams can claim. I do have my doubts that they'll stay there all season, though.
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BM1090
Purdue was a weeknight game, not very well played and hard to watch. On paper, fine win. Maybe I am the only person that found that game almost impossible to watch.
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What does not help Wojo/program IMO is that we really have played a sub par schedule and have not looked very good doing it. We have not played many games and the teams we have played are not marquee teams. I think that adds to my frustration. Last season there were three fun home games in December, all wins, and made for even anti Wojo guys to be optimistic.
Truthfully, I could not tell you the last time MU played a good game against a quality opponent. It has been bad performances for quite a few games and months since they looked like a NCAA team. It is hard to challenge any anti Wojo folks based off the last 10-15 games his team's have played.
Truth.
And let's stick with ProJos, NoJos and SoSoJos
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BM1090
Purdue was a weeknight game, not very well played and hard to watch. On paper, fine win. Maybe I am the only person that found that game almost impossible to watch.
Happy Thanksgiving
Honestly, I don’t ever find MU impossible to watch. Plenty of disappointing games over the years, but not impossible to watch.
Not sure I understand the scheduling part. We knew last year with all of the home games that this year those games would be on the road as returns. Big East games will make up for it.
Our schedule strength I have seen as good as around 100 to as bad as 224 (Sagarin)...super early.
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What does not help Wojo/program IMO is that we really have played a sub par schedule and have not looked very good doing it. We have not played many games and the teams we have played are not marquee teams. I think that adds to my frustration. Last season there were three fun home games in December, all wins, and made for even anti Wojo guys to be optimistic.
Truthfully, I could not tell you the last time MU played a good game against a quality opponent. It has been bad performances for quite a few games and months since they looked like a NCAA team. It is hard to challenge any anti Wojo folks based off the last 10-15 games his team's have played.
Two of the four games we played are against Big Ten teams that went to the NCAA tournament last year. Each year is different, but schedules made up in advance. We didn’t play a good game against Seton Hall last year...NCAA team? We didn’t blow out St John’s end of last year, an NCAA team? Did we not just win going away against Purdue?
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Two of the four games we played are against Big Ten teams that went to the NCAA tournament last year. Each year is different, but schedules made up in advance. We didn’t play a good game against Seton Hall last year...NCAA team? We didn’t blow out St John’s end of last year, an NCAA team? Did we not just win going away against Purdue?
If by win going away you mean come back from an 18 point lead to take our first lead of the game with 4 mins left in the game then yes we won doing away. I get your point though. No one can really tell how good/bad this team is from the small sample size. I really want a match up with Maryland to see.
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Cheeks
Simply saying that there is not been a great deal of great ball played by MU in last 10-15 games, and zero entertainment value with the four games thus far. If you get excited about the two Big 10 games played so far, you have a higher threshold of boredom than I do.
Not going to debate you because it is foolish and a waste of time.
That said, Happy Thanksgiving Jams!!
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BM1090
Purdue was a weeknight game, not very well played and hard to watch. On paper, fine win. Maybe I am the only person that found that game almost impossible to watch.
I found the last 23 minutes of that Purdue game to be extremely enjoyable, Goose. McEwen and Markus were outstanding, the defense was smothering, we got nice contributions from a couple of role players, and our heroes rallied to win. What's not to love (besides the first 17 minutes)?
The opener, against a crappy team, was very entertaining, with Markus scoring 548 points in the first 9 minutes ... or something like that.
Last two games, not so much. That's sports, ebbs and flows, even among the best teams.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, as well.
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If by win going away you mean come back from an 18 point lead to take our first lead of the game with 4 mins left in the game then yes we won doing away. I get your point though. No one can really tell how good/bad this team is from the small sample size. I really want a match up with Maryland to see.
I was looking at it from the perspective in the last 15 minutes of the game, we outscored them 30 to 12 to close out the game.
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Cheeks
Simply saying that there is not been a great deal of great ball played by MU in last 10-15 games, and zero entertainment value with the four games thus far. If you get excited about the two Big 10 games played so far, you have a higher threshold of boredom than I do.
Not going to debate you because it is foolish and a waste of time.
That said, Happy Thanksgiving Jams!!
All in the eye of the beholder I guess. Those last 10 to 15 games include wins against Villanova, Butler, St. John's, Purdue, Providence, etc...also include some heartbreaking losses and some dreadful ones.
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It seems like there is quite a large spread in what different posters will watch regarding MUBB. We've got some clamoring for any sort of stream of the Europe trip, going to the open practices and giving in depth reports. I remember the outrage when NIT tickets were unavailable two years ago.
Others find a 30 point swing against a high major that went to the E8 last year, and that we'd never beaten to have "zero entertainment value". Different strokes for different folks. Although one can wonder if why you find there to be no entertainment value, you not only continue to tune in, but post about the games on a message board?
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BM1090
Purdue was a weeknight game, not very well played and hard to watch. On paper, fine win. Maybe I am the only person that found that game almost impossible to watch.
It certainly wasn't aesthetically pleasing, but it was a win over a good team. Given that we've only played 4 games I'm thrilled to have a quality win under our belts already.
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DJO
I found the three home games last December and a number of BE games to be very entertaining. As a whole, give me 2-3 exciting games, 4-5 good games and general mix between average to below average and I am fine. I do not expect to be circling my calendar 30 times prior to the season. IMO, if MU was 3-1 and played quality ball in those games thus far I would be fine with that. As I noted, it has been a hangover from the end of last season for me. 82 pointed out SH game from last year and refreshed my memory. That was entertaining to me.
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DJO
I found the three home games last December and a number of BE games to be very entertaining. As a whole, give me 2-3 exciting games, 4-5 good games and general mix between average to below average and I am fine. I do not expect to be circling my calendar 30 times prior to the season. IMO, if MU was 3-1 and played quality ball in those games thus far I would be fine with that. As I noted, it has been a hangover from the end of last season for me. 82 pointed out SH game from last year and refreshed my memory. That was entertaining to me.
Once again, different strokes for different folks. I find any and every MU win to be extremely entertaining (some more than other obviously). If it didn't have adverse effects on our SOS and therefore our postseason potential, I would be 100% okay with a Charmin soft non conference schedule every year.
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Truth.
And let's stick with ProJos, NoJos and SoSoJos
Can't get SoSoJo to the tune of Sussudio out of my head now, thanks
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LOL. OK, Hoopy.
Joined Nov 25th 2017. 2 years ago
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Brother Dad, many of us have been following Warrior basketball for decades. Perhaps you have too.
We know there has been injuries. Trust me, your point has some merit. But we also this is a senior-led team and the core of the team has been together for some time. The problems they are having should not be happening.
The reason we're so down is that we're seeing the same problems that have concerned us for several years: the hero ball, the lack of meaningful contribution from too much of our line-up, the lack of defensive steals, the turnovers etc. The Wisconsin game disgusted us. The Robert Morris game scared us.
We are angry with our coach for allowing Hausershima to happen. He should have managed his locker room more effectively. We question the quality of this coach's offense and his ability to use his center. We see a lack of in-game adjustments. We actually want our coach to succeed and while there is division between the fire Wojo crowd and the let him develop crowd, we're all afraid if it does not work out, we're all condemned to yet another rebuild. Nobody wants that, especially with what we have coming in next year.
If I may respond to some of your statements. Do you think adjustments were made in the Purdue game?
Was not MU’s offense one of the best in the nation the last few years, but defense the problem? He has emphasized and improved the defense as a result.
Robert Morris scared you, but is that not normal for this time of year in college basketball?
Hauserschima (that is a great descriptor), do we know if anything he could do could save it? Or anyone else for that matter? My daughter is a junior, knows some of the players. Her belief is Joey never wanted to be here from day one and statements of players now echo that. One would likely believe coach would do anything to keep everyone together, but there are marriages that break up no matter what one tries to do. No amount of intervention can help.
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I'd be happy with 4-0 and crap quality vs 0-4 of outstanding quality.
Just me though.
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Just win, baby.
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Hey Goose ... You wanna talk about "unwatchable" ... How about the defending national champions' 46-26 win over Maine?
If that were an aberration, it would be one thing. But Virginia plays a lot of those.
Nevertheless, lotsa Scoopers pine for Bennett, the most revered Hauser had no problem going to play there, and it sure seems UVa fans are happy.
I guess winning cures all, even if it's more exciting to watch paint dry.
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Hey Goose ... You wanna talk about "unwatchable" ... How about the defending national champions' 46-26 win over Maine?
If that were an aberration, it would be one thing. But Virginia plays a lot of those.
Nevertheless, lotsa Scoopers pine for Bennett, the most revered Hauser had no problem going to play there, and it sure seems UVa fans are happy.
I guess winning cures all, even if it's more exciting to watch paint dry.
The Bennett family belongs in prison
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The Bennett family belongs in prison
That's a little harsh.
I was thinking maybe house arrest.
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the 2nd half of the purdue game was like picking up the 10* at closing time then waking up with a naked phyllis diller(wisconsin game) sleeping across one of your arms and then learning how to pee with the other hand(robert morris)and it hurts