Utterly pathetic … and on national television

[MU Avenue]

Marquette's loss to Vanderbilt was bad basketball at its best. I am not sure how MU could have played worse.

Further, why does MU often seem to save its worst performances for national television? That was one horrible, embarrassing display that will have many people doubting Marquette basketball.

MU's players individually and collectively stunk almost every minute of that game.

An off night? That explanation is almost impossible to accept.

This was not even another in Marquette's long history of slow starts. Against Vanderbilt, Marquette never got going. Never!

[CTWarrior]

We are a dreadful defensive team right now.  A perfect example was that back cut down the center of the lane for an easy dunk right before halftime.  Besides the easy dunk they had a wide open 3 point shooter.  Sometimes I think we ought to just pack in a zone or something. 

We overplay trying to double and go for the steal way too much.  Crowder is by far the worst at this.  He leaves us with messed up rotations more than any other player on the team.

[Hoopaloop]

Marquette's loss to Vanderbilt was bad basketball at its best. I am not sure how MU could have played worse.

Further, why does MU often seem to save its worst performances for national television? That was one horrible, embarrassing display that will have many people doubting Marquette basketball.

MU's players individually and collectively stunk almost every minute of that game.

An off night? That explanation is almost impossible to accept.

This was not even another in Marquette's long history of slow starts. Against Vanderbilt, Marquette never got going. Never!

Many here are blaming the lack of O'Tule but there seems to be much more than that going on.  Need to get it right by conference play which is right around the corner.  The euphorea here a few weeks ago seems like 5 years ago.

[ATWizJr]

Struggling to not say that this was an inexcusable result.

[Tugg Speedman]

Selective thinking here?

Wisconsin was a national game.  Was that a "worse performance?"
Washington was a national game.  Vitale did the game!  Was that a "worse performance?"
Syracuse in the Tourney last year was a national game.  Was that a "worse performance?"


This thread is why I can hate this board after a loss, unbounded emotional thinking that makes no sense.

So, let me try this ... UNC game redux, we shot horribly in the first 10 minutes and such a deep hole we could not recover.  Not hard to understand but yes hard to watch.

Will it have a lasting effect?  Probably not.  How bad did the Louisville debacle bother us last year (blowing an 18 point led in the last 5 minutes).  Seems like the answer is "not much."

[Hoopaloop]

Selective thinking here?

Wisconsin was a national game.  Was that a "worse performance?"
Washington was a national game.  Vitale did the game!  Was that a "worse performance?"
Syracuse in the Tourney last year was a national game.  Was that a "worse performance?"


This thread is why I can hate this board after a loss, unbounded emotional thinking that makes no sense.

So, let me try this ... UNC game redux, we shot horribly in the first 10 minutes and such a deep hole we could not recover.  Not hard to understand but yes hard to watch.

Will it have a lasting effect?  Probably not.  How bad did the Louisville debacle bother us last year (blowing an 18 point led in the last 5 minutes).  Seems like the answer is "not much."

Good points, but disagree with your last one.  We did not have a great regular season last year.  The Louisville game did hurt us and we limped down the stretch somewhat until the Big East tournament.  We were no lock to get in until the effort of the Big East tournament.  Much of last season's results were masked by a nice run to the Sweet 16, but we cannot forget that we did finish in the bottom half of the league and lost a number of games we should have won.   National television games we seem to remember the losses here more than the wins.  Look at the number of posters that complain about the Kansas loss and forget thumping the number 1 team less than a week earlier, also on national tv.

[Jacks DC]

Yeah, I was thinking that it was less than a year ago when we were unranked and thoroughly dominated #11 Notre Dame and won by 22 on national TV (of course they beat us at their place 12 days later). 

Every team has its ups and downs.  We sucked tonight and now we know where we stand, but we will bounce back - hopefully on Sunday.

[TVDirector]

worse game I've been to in a long time.
add that there was an incredibly obnoxious Vandy fan directly behind me screaming every time Vandy touched the ball and it made it even worse.

some thoughts:
Vandy is very big- athletic- and good.
Throw in the fact that we had like 7 points in the first 10 minutes of the game and there was little chance to come back against such a tight team.

what happened to our free throw shooting?  it looked as if the guys hadn't taken a shot since the UWM game.

field goal wise we couldn't hit the ocean standing on the shore.  a lot of it was V's D, but even bunnies weren't even close.

Buzz seemed pistol-whipped...  plays after TO's found worse results than just heaving it up there.

Davante was sleep-walking-  if he wasn't lolling his head after missing a shot, a free throw or getting a bench seat he didn't have much action at all.

Bruce Pearl looked tan and rested-- sat next to Bucks THarris and Onecall Gruber.

recruit there with his family-  his bro was wearing a KY jacket/hoodie--- seemed unimpressed and his folks kinda shook their heads when the crowd finally had enough and started skirting out with many minutes left to play.  crappy game for them to sit through for certain.

never seen Crowder miss so many free throws.... amazing.

most MU guys worked hard--- but almost with no direction.  painful to sit through at times.

OTule would've helped by at least moving some of their monsters around and away from the basket...  amazing we got any rebounds at all- especially in the first half.

once again we hit a zone and go completely flat.  can't be a surprise anymore.


best part?  it's over.

[MU Avenue]

Selective thinking here?

Wisconsin was a national game.  Was that a "worse performance?"
Washington was a national game.  Vitale did the game!  Was that a "worse performance?"
Syracuse in the Tourney last year was a national game.  Was that a "worse performance?"


This thread is why I can hate this board after a loss, unbounded emotional thinking that makes no sense.

So, let me try this ... UNC game redux, we shot horribly in the first 10 minutes and such a deep hole we could not recover.  Not hard to understand but yes hard to watch.

Will it have a lasting effect?  Probably not.  How bad did the Louisville debacle bother us last year (blowing an 18 point led in the last 5 minutes).  Seems like the answer is "not much."

Relax, AnotherMU84. I did not write that Marquette has looked awful in all of its nationally televised games.

A handful of good games, however, does not erase all of those games over the years in which MU has played badly or terribly on national television. And in most of those losses, Marquette started very slowly, allowing opponents to build big or huge leads that MU was unable to overcome.

Tonight's loss to Vanderbilt was about as bad -- and ridiculous -- as any game I have seen MU play in years.

I cannot understand how an even pretty good team can play so badly for an entire game.

[Tugg Speedman]

Relax, AnotherMU84. I did not write that Marquette has looked awful in all of its nationally televised games.

A handful of good games, however, does not erase all of those games over the years in which MU has played badly or terribly on national television. And in most of those losses, Marquette started very slowly, allowing opponents to build big or huge leads that MU was unable to overcome.

Tonight's loss to Vanderbilt was about as bad -- and ridiculous -- as any game I have seen MU play in years.

I cannot understand how an even pretty good team can play so badly for an entire game.

No you wrote ... Further, why does MU often seem to save its worst performances for national television? That was one horrible, embarrassing display that will have many people doubting Marquette basketball.

And no it's not the worse game in years.  UNC and Lousiville last year were worse.

Shooting 2 for 20 to start is an off night and no cliche excused about Otule, defense, not practicing free throws or whatever is going to explain that kind of start.

[wildbillsb]

Sheesh, too bad the Rutgers - Florida game didn't go a few more OT's.  My jaw would have been clenched less often.

[PE8983]

The Louisville game last year was not worse, as we had a chance to win that one.  Losing on a last second shot to a top team on the road doesn't hurt you.  Tonight, we got blown out at home to an unranked team.  Not even competitive.  That's gonna hurt our NCAA chances or seeding, no doubt.  As a result, that's worse.

[CTWarrior]

Selective thinking here?

Wisconsin was a national game.  Was that a "worse performance?"
Washington was a national game.  Vitale did the game!  Was that a "worse performance?"
Syracuse in the Tourney last year was a national game.  Was that a "worse performance?"


This thread is why I can hate this board after a loss, unbounded emotional thinking that makes no sense.

So, let me try this ... UNC game redux, we shot horribly in the first 10 minutes and such a deep hole we could not recover.  Not hard to understand but yes hard to watch.

Will it have a lasting effect?  Probably not.  How bad did the Louisville debacle bother us last year (blowing an 18 point led in the last 5 minutes).  Seems like the answer is "not much."

Wisconsin wasn't a national TV game.  Wasn't on here in CT, for example.  We didn't play very well against Washington, but we got the win.  You've been hearing some announcers say the Washington is pretty good since they played us, but that was mostly because we made them look good.  Overall, however, I agree with your larger point.  We've been inconsistent in nationally televised games (some good, some bad) just like we are in all games.

[Tugg Speedman]

The Louisville game last year was not worse, as we had a chance to win that one.  Losing on a last second shot to a top team on the road doesn't hurt you.  Tonight, we got blown out at home to an unranked team.  Not even competitive.  That's gonna hurt our NCAA chances or seeding, no doubt.  As a result, that's worse.

Um ... regarding the Louisville game, we blew an 18 point lead in the last 5 minutes.  Go back and look at the threads, that was less than a minute away from being an all-time NCAA record  for the biggest blow lead in the last five minutes of a game.  

For three months after this game many wanted Buzz fired because it was proof he could not coach.  Others called it the worse loss in MU history.  Search for "choke" on the board for threads last January and you'll see this loss was a speed bump compared to that one.

Your comments characterized the Louisville game as a back and forth that we lost on the last shot.  Technically what you wrote was correct but the implication was completely wrong.

Vandy was pre-season top 10.  Now that Elize is back, they will start winning again, and get ranked again, in the coming weeks so this will look "less bad."  

And don't worry about our seeding and ncaa chances, the next 18 conference games will matter about 18 times more than this game.