Season Grade

[GoldenEagles03]

B

Season was above average.  Exceeded expectations. OMax, Stevie, Kam, Kolek, Justin, Joplin got valuable minutes.

A building block.

[GoldenEagles03]

Slightly too early to judge only because i want to compare Shaka to other first year coaches.


Clearly worse than Tommy Lloyd, Mark Adams, and Hubert Davis.

Could be similar too or slightly worse than to Chris Beard, TJ Otzelberger, Drew Valentine.

Slightly better than Mike Woodson, and maybe Porter Moser if he wins the NIT

Better than Ben Johnson, Earl Grant, Wes Miller, Micah Shewsberry, Craig Smith, Tony Stubblefield, Kevin Kruger, Ryan Odom, Pat Kelsey.

I gave a B. Anything below a C+ is probably too low because preseason expectations were exceeded.

Like just this year?  Because Shaka is a better coach than a lot of those guys listed.

Shaka is 7-9 in the NCAA Tournament with a Final Four.

5-0 in the NIT

5-0 in the CBI

He's won at all levels.  He's a winner.  Brought a preseason 9th ranked team in the conference to an NCAA Tournament.

[cheebs09]

B

Season was above average.  Exceeded expectations. OMax, Stevie, Kam, Kolek, Justin, Joplin got valuable minutes.

A building block.

That's where I'm at. Coming into the year, the team had some flaws. I think coaching did a good job covering them up early, but between hitting a wall and other coaches scouting, we struggled.

I'm very optimistic about the future as Shaka has time to build his team.

[WarriorPride68]

Majority votes for "B". Lost by 30 in the first round

Standards have dropped substantially. Sad

[Hards Alumni]

Majority votes for "B". Lost by 30 in the first round

Standards have dropped substantially. Sad

Look.  I know this is hard for you.  Marquette was picked to be 9th in the Big East.  That we even sniffed the tournament is an accomplishment.

You just have unrealistic expectations.  And they probably haven't changed since before the introduction of the three point line.

[NCMUFan]

No one more critical than the fans.
Appreciate the effort put in by coaching staff and player students.
Looking forward to next year.
B.  Far exceeded my expectations.

[GoldenEagles03]

Majority votes for "B". Lost by 30 in the first round

Standards have dropped substantially. Sad

If you read really closely it says SEASON grade. Not grade for yesterday.

[Warrior Code]

B

Season was above average.  Exceeded expectations. OMax, Stevie, Kam, Kolek, Justin, Joplin got valuable minutes.

A building block.

This is about where I am. Maybe a B- because they landed with a thud on the biggest stage, but it's still a better year overall than I expected. This team was never going to be great but they got me excited about Marquette basketball again, more so than I have been in the past few years, so I'm thankful for that.

Good year, excited about the future

[Warrior_2002]

Like just this year?  Because Shaka is a better coach than a lot of those guys listed.

Shaka is 7-9 in the NCAA Tournament with a Final Four.

5-0 in the NIT

5-0 in the CBI

He's won at all levels.  He's a winner.  Brought a preseason 9th ranked team in the conference to an NCAA Tournament.

Completely agree. It's year 1 and no one expected us in the NCAAT and he does it with 9 new guys? Sure there were bumps and successes and regressions but looking forward to seeing Shaka build on this year.

[Goose]

Warrior Code

Biggest take away from this season is that I got excited about Marquette basketball again. I am more pissed off today about the game yesterday and I will be until we see real success. That said, I am not going to allow NCAA loses from the past two decades and yesterday jade my thinking. They sucked yesterday and it was embarrassing. It is my hope that yesterday is rock bottom of the Shaka era and it is motivation for every returning guy. If I am embarrassed I sure as hell hope that every returning coach and player is extremely embarrassed. If not, then Shaka would not be the right guy. At this point, I am still on the Shaka train and expect much more next season.

[rgoode57]

Now that I am over the shock of yesterday's game, I judge the season by simply asking a few basic questions:

1. Did the team improve throughout the season?  Certainly they were on a downward trend the last month, but they also had a remarkable run mid-Jan to Mid-Feb that got everyone very excited.

2. Was the team greater then the sum of its parts? At times, yes. Toward the end, no.

3. Did individual players improve?  Other than Lewis, I can't really say that any player improved individually over the course of the season. Kolek declined pretty noticeably as did Oso and Kur. On the other hand Stevie Mitchell, Kam Jones, and Omax showed potential for next year.

4. Did the team bring excitement back to MU basketball? Absolutely.

I give the season a B-.

Shaka certainly needs to make some improvements, but he knows that better than any of us do. A pg is badly needed as is a center who can rebound, defend, and score from 15 feet. He does not have that pg on t he roster right now but maybe the incoming Jones kid can fill that role though it's tough for a freshman to do. I don't know if he he can get his big from the transfer portal. We'll see

[cheebs09]

Majority votes for "B". Lost by 30 in the first round

Standards have dropped substantially. Sad

If this were 5 years from now, I would grade much lower. I agree with Goose that I view this year as kind of a baseline year and the future to be bright.

My expectations going into this year with all the new players was similar to Wojo's first year. Maybe that's too low and I'm COLE, but I saw a lot of reasons to be optimistic about our future this year when Shaka has more time to build a team the way he wants.

[dgies9156]

D-

For heaven sakes, you flagged the final. Badly. It's as if instead of studying the night before the final exam, you went to Haggerty's and drank until closing time. And then failed to show up for the final.

The "F" is so bad it ruined all the work you did up to that point.

We had a professor in the College of Journalism back in my day who would have asked of this team, "What are you doing here?" Or, "How did you get this far?"

The objective of a team is to win in the post-season. We didn't. Yet, out of recognition for the two Villanova wins, we pass, barely.

[CountryRoads]

That said, I am not going to allow NCAA loses from the past two decades and yesterday jade my thinking.

There's a lot of this going on I'm noticing. Folks have become desperate for March relevance, myself included. It's difficult to not let the recent past jade your thinking, but it is important to realize where this program was when Shaka took over.

Most fans expected us to suck in year one and have the young guys show a little promise in the last few meaningless games. Instead we were ranked in the top 20 and playing for a protected seed at the start of February. Most should feel expectations were met in this year, we just took a very different path to get there.

This happens almost every year, but it seems what most are concerned about is that they feel we won't even be as good next year with the departures of current players. It's valid to worry about an uncertain future, but it's unfounded and too early to say. Shaka will need a big time Spring recruiting season and we'll also need guys to make significant jumps who will be entering their second year in the program. I'm excited to watch it happen and expect us to win big next year.

[IL Warrior]

Marquette Basketball this season was the student with a solid A at midterms.

Slacked off the 2nd half of the semester, turning in lackluster assignments for 6 weeks. Entered finals week with a B.

Didn't show up to the final exam. Drop a letter grade to a C.

[StillAWarrior]

I've been thinking a lot about this. I'm really torn. Like a lot of people, I said that the key thing that I wanted to see with this Shaka-led team was improvement over the course of the season. So, my mid-term grade for this team would be a very solid A. But, since improvement over the season was one of my key factors, I cannot ignore what happened in the last six weeks. I don't think I'd say it was an F -- at least we protected the home court -- but it's definitely in the low D range. And that final exam...woof! Funny how timing affects our feelings about a regression toward the mean.

Ultimately, I feel like I end up in the B/C range. If judging solely by improvement over the course of the season, it would definitely be in C range. However, I will give a boost for exceeding my initial expectations and give it a B-.

[mileskishnish72]

Had to wait a day and get a night's sleep. Re: grading -I don't know how MU grades, and I started off with pluses and minuses but it looked so busy with so many alternatives I thought it a poor polling instrument. All the B- and C+ folks have to make the call.

There are a lot of interesting comments above. At first I thought I was solidly in the B camp. The posts about the progression of the season made some good points for a C though.

I think the main points (for me) were that so many guys were new, and the preseason expectations were so low. We had some unexpected victories, a hot streak, and came back to earth (came back to earth yesterday as if our 'chute hadn't opened.

So we had elation, we had disappointment. I still feel happy that it's not the same old, same old as we had the prior seven seasons. I'm with the guys who think Shaka gets some run and can improve our status in the college hoop constellation (despite the inexplicable failure to foul a guy who's dribbling with less than 3 seconds left {up 3} and some highly questionable substitution and
personnel choices to be on the floor together, particularly recently). As for personnel, April is going to be very important for MU ball.

B it is.

[Warrior2008]

I gave a B grade, but I have some concerns.

I think going into the season, anyone would have been happy with a tournament appearance and a sweep of Nova and Seton Hall.  The stretch run the team had in January through mid-February was incredible and brought a lot of life back into the program.  All in all, I think those reasons are why even with the blowout yesterday and the end of year swoon, you still have to give them at least a C, if not a B.

The concerns though:
1. Rebounding.  This might have been the most pathetic rebounding Marquette team I can remember.  At no point was there any improvement or commitment to at least being average.  It got so bad, that I'm convinced teams started taking bad threes because they thought they'd have a decent shot at an offensive board even if they missed the three. This has to be a focal point for improvement for the staff in the offseason.

2. The loss of focus on defense down the stretch.  Guys getting beat off the dribble pretty routinely leading to overhelping leading to open 3s. One of the things I was most excited about when Shaka was hired was the commitment his team's have to defense.  For 2/3rds of the year, this team had that.  But how a team went from a top 30ish defense to one routinely getting picked apart has to lead to some concern. 

3. The inability to adjust to team's defending Tyler in the P&R.  When team's took away Tyler as a passer on the P&R it really took a huge piece of the half court offense away and made mubb dependent on hitting 3s or having success in iso sets.  Tyler or whoever is running the point has to be a threat to score, otherwise teams are going to continue to sag on the ball handler.  Watching, albeit limited. tape on Sean Jones makes me think he can help here and Stevie showed some ability late in the year as well.

All in all, it was a good year.  I'm still very bullish on where this team is going.  The core group returning is very capable and talented.  Even if Justin leaves, Tyler, Kam, OMax, and Oso are all starting level Big East talent and Stevie certainly could be as well.  They need a true PG to help take some pressure off Tyler and a true center to help clean up the glass.  But the foundation is there.

[dgies9156]

All in all, it was a good year.  I'm still very bullish on where this team is going. 

Brother Warrior:

Really?

Look, I like Shaka and we made the right decision to terminate Wojo. But are you kidding me.

The NCAA is the final examination for the entire season. WE FLUNKED so badly that it calls into question the decision by the NCAA Tournament Committee to include us. There's a bunch of guys in Indianapolis with lots of egg on their face.

Suppose your son or daughter told you after their report card came that they flunked Psych because he/she forgot there was a final and was out until 2:00 a.m., at Haggerty's? If you are paying for it, you'd terminate their reason to live, or something more drastic.

There should be a lot of shame around the McGuire Center today. This crap about how we "exceeded expectations" is trying to soothe over one of the worst wounds our beloved program ever took. As family, we have the right inside our family to demand better and push for more. To mollify an abject failure in inexcusable.

Fix it -- as soon as possible!

[Warrior2008]

Brother Warrior:

Really?

Look, I like Shaka and we made the right decision to terminate Wojo. But are you kidding me.

The NCAA is the final examination for the entire season. WE FLUNKED so bad that it calls into question the decision by the NCAA Tournament Committee to include us. There's a bunch of guys in Indianapolis with lots of egg on their face.

Suppose your son or daughter told you after their report card came that they flunked Psych because he/she forgot there was a final and was out until 2:00 a.m., at Haggerty's? If you are paying for it, you'd terminate their reason to live, or something more drastic.

There should be a lot of shame around the McGuire Center today. This crap about how we "exceeded expectations" is trying to soothe over one of the worst wounds our beloved program ever took. As family, we have the right inside our family to demand better and push for more. To mollify an abject failure in inexcusable.

Yes I am serious.  Yesterday sucked, there isn't any way around that and I won't sugarcoat it.  But making broad generalizations from a single elimination tournament is something only fans do.  So be as upset as you'd like over yesterday, I'm gonna choose to look at the greater body of work when judging year 1 of Shaka.

[GooooMarquette]

Marquette Basketball this season was the student with a solid A at midterms.

Slacked off the 2nd half of the semester, turning in lackluster assignments for 6 weeks. Entered finals week with a B.

Didn't show up to the final exam. Drop a letter grade to a C.

This is pretty much how I feel. I would probably make it a C+ because they ended up very slightly above where I expected them to be (a bubble team that maybe got in with a 10 or 11 seed, then lost).

As an editorial comment on some of the grades, the people who gave us an A must have really expected us to suck, and those who gave us an F must be completely ignoring everything except yesterday.

[WarriorFan]

To grade the whole season one must look at a lot of factors:

Schedule Strength:  A
W/L:  B. (well above expectations)
Excitement:  A
Team quality, divided into:
Centers:  C-
Forwards:  A-, big drop off after Lewis
Guards:  B
Bench:  C. Too inconsistent, but nice potential from the young guys
Defense:  B- 
Offense:  B-
Big East Relevance:  C. Gotta win a BET game, gotta win 100% at home.
NCAA Relevance:  D. The goal was obviously to get into the tournament, and they did that and only that.  The goal next year needs to be winning in the tournament
Coaching:  C. This is lower than what I thought I might give, but upon reflection what I saw is that Shaka didn't understand how BEAST coaches will make specific adjustments the 2nd time through the schedule, and he didn't do the same.  His system is good, and has the capability of getting "system" buckets off of back door cuts, lobs, etc. for guys who cannot create their own baskets, but even the worst BEAST coaches (McDermott) figure out how to beat the system the 2nd time around.  I fully predict Shaka already knows this and will fix it for next year. 
Recruiting:  A. Put together a nice team in a short time. 

Overall I give a B... maybe a low B.  Key to me is that the excitement for MU basketball has returned.  Shaka should now understand the BEAST better and know that you need for success:

- a 6'9 or bigger bruiser
- shooting, shooting and more shooting
- 6'5" or larger guards who can play D and create their own buckets
- shooting

[UWW2MU]

My grade is based on my preseason requirement - not games won/lost or tournament success.   Rather, I said all along from beginning that I wanted to see growth throughout the season.   We definitely saw that, until the end.  Sprinkle a surprise NCAAT berth on there and voila, solid B grade from me.