Big East Conference Tournament Championship

[DoctorV]

It’s game day, Championship game day.

With all the discussion on last nights game and the seeding games, it’s time to start talking about what matters the most.

Marquette has a chance to win its first ever Big East Tournament Championship, and why not? Let put the icing on the cake on what could be as perfect a season as possible leading up to the big dance.

The opponent, the Xavier Musketeers.
Xavier looked really damn good last night against Creighton, sort of caught me by surprise. If I’m being honest, I preferred X over CU, but watching the game I found myself surprised with how good, gritty, and tough X looked.

Freemantle is a heckuva player and a big blow for them, but as Brew has mentioned they are a tougher and less finesse side with Hunter. It’s a testament to Miller that they are still playing this well without Zach. Souley Boum and Nunge were really good last night, and Colby Jones was awesome as usual- I’d argue that he’s one of the least talked about elite players in the conference.

For all the great games that Marquette has played in this year, if I had to pick one game that was the most important to the season I would pick the home game versus Xavier, the OMax putback at the end. They will clearly remember that and the motivation will be thru the roof on both sides, for obvious reasons.

Marquette has more weapons, we’ve got the BE PoY and two more all BE players to go along with an amazing core of complementary players ready to shine in their roles. The coaching is elite on both sides, the bright lights will be on the Garden.
As an aside on the coaching point, it seems like Coach Smart and Coach Miller have taken and will continue to take the conference by storm. Along with Coach Hurley and UConn, I would expect Marquette and Xavier to be the cream of the crop in the conference for the foreseeable future. Sure McDermott and Cooley will have their say, and the others will have good seasons here and there, but I expect the 3 I mentioned to be at or near the top year in and year out barring major changes.
What a difference leadership makes.

What are the keys to bringing home this Championship? Let’s banter.

[ATL MU Warrior]

Oso and TK will be very fresh after their foul trouble against UConn.

[21Jumpstreet]

Who will OMax shut down. X has multiple weapons, can OMax take one of them out of the game. I think we come out flying!

[HowardsWorld]

Creighton to be blunt played very poorly was it a result of Xavier’s d? Maybe. The thing with creighton is if they aren’t hitting 40% from three like we are a custom to seeing they don’t win.

[Herman Cain]

Miller is very good at making adjustments.

So we need our top 6 guys all having solid games . Which makes the adjustments harder to do.

 Plus our freshman give energy with no mistakes .

Have to limit open looks from 3 .

Will be a classic Big East Battle .

[HowardsWorld]

As long as Marquette doesn’t coming out scoring 8 points in the first ten minutes like last matchup we should be able to take this one.

[MuggsyB]

Boum can go bananas and C.Jones is a heck of a player.  That's a very good basketball team for sure.  The fact that we found a way last night with TyKo and Oso in major foul trouble has to give our team even more confidence.  Boum is the guy I would like to eliminate.  Not literally of course. 

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

My daughter sits next to Colby Jones in one of her classes.

[nyg]

Without Freemantle, X has no bench.  Only Desmond Claude.  Claude comes in for Nunge and they move Hunter to the center position. Claude also stays in when they give Jones and Kunkel breathers. MU will keep a fast pace and hopefully X tires or gets one/two of starters in foul trouble.

Contain Boum from going off.  Presume Mitchell will guard him, but Shaka always replaces Mitchell right before the 16 minute mark with Joplin.  Let's see if Mitchell gets more time if he is shutting down Boum. Boum is very, very dangerous but as in last game, is prone to sloppy turnovers.


Tire them out and contain Boum. 

[MU82]

We've been the better team this season, we'll be the better team tonight, and we'll be celebrating both Big East titles at about 8:45 ET.

Then it will be time to start preparing for an even bigger celebration in 3 weeks and 2 days.

[Scoop Snoop]

Boum can go bananas and C.Jones is a heck of a player.  That's a very good basketball team for sure.  The fact that we found a way last night with TyKo and Oso in major foul trouble has to give our team even more confidence.  Boum is the guy I would like to eliminate.  Not literally of course. 

C'mon Muggsy. Everybody has to go sometime.   

Yeah, I think keeping him from going off is huge.

I'm hoping that they ran themselves ragged last night and have less fuel reserves than MU tonight. Ironically, Kolek and Oso having to sit last night may pay dividends tonight.

[marqhattan]

Xavier is not a deep team and I'm a bit surprised they didn't sit their starters earlier last night (though I acknowledge they weren't expending max energy).

I liken Xavier's game last night to UConn's first half against Providence. I kept thinking "let them get it out of their system ...let them get a bit overconfident".

At the same time, Marquette needs to get over the euphoria of what many thought felt like the championship game last night. We really need to carry that same intensity into tonight's game. I think we have the right coach and players and "no finish line" mentality to make it happen.

[Uncle Rico]

I hope both teams had nice dinners last night, got some classroom work done and got 7.5 hours of sleep.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Without Freemantle, X has no bench.  Only Desmond Claude.  Claude comes in for Nunge and they move Hunter to the center position. Claude also stays in when they give Jones and Kunkel breathers. MU will keep a fast pace and hopefully X tires or gets one/two of starters in foul trouble.

Claude doesn't come in for Nunge. Caesare Edwards comes in for Nunge. Claude comes in for the other 4. You'll rarely see Hunter at the 5 if at all.

Fortunately, Edwards is mostly a warm body out there so understandable that you missed him

[tower912]

Who will OMax shut down. X has multiple weapons, can OMax take one of them out of the game. I think we come out flying!

Stevie on Boum.  He ain't leavin him. 

[MUFC9295]

"If you lose this game, you'll take it to your grave...your *$%#@ grave!"

A little Brooksian encouragement.  LFG!

[Dr. Blackheart]

Jeff Clark
Brian O'Connell
Jeff Anderson
Lamar Simpson
Brent Hampton
James Breeding

Three of these will be the officials tonight. High Stepper Anderson and Video Review Breeding will be two of them imo.  Hoping for Clark to add some balance for the cameras. Incredibly, this would be Anderson's fourth straight MU game but the Prancer and Breeding are both F4 officials.

[JakeBarnes]

Jeff Clark
Brian O'Connell
Jeff Anderson
Lamar Simpson
Brent Hampton
James Breeding

Three of these will be the officials tonight. High Stepper Anderson and Video Review Breeding will be two of them imo.  Hoping for Clark to add some balance for the cameras. Incredibly, this would be Anderson's fourth straight MU game but the Prancer and Breeding are both F4 officials.

O'Connell is good too. Generally balanced, good communication about why he made a call (outside of that "jump ball"), and can get slightly swayed by crowd (which should benefit us this time?)

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

My daughter sits next to Colby Jones in one of her classes.

She couldn’t have slipped a little x-lax into his water bottle before they left for NYC?

[NickelDimer]

I think the X factor for XU is Colby Jones. When he’s hunting his shot and scoring efficiently they become very hard to defend and beat.

[MU82]

All 3 guys on the ESPN Gameday crew (Ellis, Greenberg, Bilas) picked Marquette to win tonight.

[Uncle Rico]

All 3 guys on the ESPN Gameday crew (Ellis, Greenberg, Bilas) picked Marquette to win tonight.

Typical ESPN anti-Big East bias

[ATL MU Warrior]

All 3 guys on the ESPN Gameday crew (Ellis, Greenberg, Bilas) picked Marquette to win tonight.

Sure sign we’ll lose

[tower912]

The announcers hate MU, so they are doing the reverse announcer jinx on them.