[Cracked Sidewalks] Buzz Williams to remain at Marquette as head coach

[kmwtrucks]

Anybody that compares college basketball and recruiting from 35 years ago Needs to get with the Times.  Recruiting has changed and the number of Top teams that you have to compete with in regard to recruits has gone up greatly.  If you are a at large team that means you are a top 45 program in the country.  So if you look at our seeds over the last 3 years we would average out about a 7 which would mean were 28th on average.  If People expect us to be top 10 every year you will be very disappointed.  I'm not saying that with a little luck and a few solid hits on the recruiting front we cannot be some years but not every year.  North Carolina could not even do it.

[willie warrior]

I do not think anybody said we should be in the top 10 every year in recruiting, but we should be able to ocassionally get a big time stud. Again, look at UNC and Duke, 5 to 7 on their roster every year. We have none. Buzz is now making that kind of money, so he should be periodically landing some, or at least be landing us players to be in top 4 or 5 of Beast and make deep tourney runs periodically---and it should be better than 9th place in BEast and making a sweet 16 run every 10 years or so.

[WarriorHal]

In addition, you are 100% correct on Al's WI recruiting. Virtually every player he recruited from WI was a complimentary player, not a stud. In today's game every kid in the country is fair game. It is time for MU fans to expect an elite program on the court.

Wisconsin high school basketball pretty much sucked back then and so did UW-Madison. Al filled out the bench with kids from Wis. But he wasn't losing "studs" to UW-Madison. There weren't any. At least not compared to the players he was bringing in from NY & Ill. Marquette wasn't losing recruiting battles to UW-Madison. We were a top-10 national program and they were pretty much a second-division team in the Big 10.

[kmwtrucks]

I would think that Vander would be considered a Big time recruit.  he may have fallen off a bit his senior year, but when he signed he had offer's from UCLA and FLA and might have had more if he was not committed to UW.  Also Wilson was recruited nationally as well. 

[Goose]

Obviously VB and Jamil were big time recruits. We were referring to Al's era and we did little recruiting locally.

[willie warrior]

I would think that Vander would be considered a Big time recruit.  he may have fallen off a bit his senior year, but when he signed he had offer's from UCLA and FLA and might have had more if he was not committed to UW.  Also Wilson was recruited nationally as well. 

You are entitled to think that. IMO he was vastly overrated--he did not even win Mr. basketball in Wisconsin. And his performance this year showed how he was overrated. Not saying he is a crummy player--just saying he has not shown his alleged high rating. What was Jeremy Lamb rated?

[RawdogDX]

I do not think anybody said we should be in the top 10 every year in recruiting, but we should be able to ocassionally get a big time stud. Again, look at UNC and Duke, 5 to 7 on their roster every year. We have none. Buzz is now making that kind of money, so he should be periodically landing some, or at least be landing us players to be in top 4 or 5 of Beast and make deep tourney runs periodically---and it should be better than 9th place in BEast and making a sweet 16 run every 10 years or so.

5-7 studs every year?  I didn't realize Duke had 24 scholarship players on their team.

[Henry Sugar]

5-7 studs every year?  I didn't realize Duke had 24 scholarship players on their team.

Duke has made a commitment to be Elite.

[Goose]

willie--You cannot pick and chose after kids are signed. VB was highly rated and could have picked most top schools in the country. Granted he up and down year but you cannot take away his HS rank and his potential. Barnes of UNC was preseason AA and ended up Honorable Mention, does that lower his rank?


I think it is reasonable for MU to be in on top 40 kids every year and steal 1 or 2 every couple of years. To believe we cannot McDonald's AA is crazy. It can be done.

[Goose]

Rawdog---MU is making commitment to be Elite with signing of Buzz. I can almost guarantee we could get a new up and comer every 3-5 years as coach and match this season's BE record. Those guys get a mil a year. Obviously the school and heavy hitters are playing for keeps.

[willie warrior]

5-7 studs every year?  I didn't realize Duke had 24 scholarship players on their team.

Maybe you should read and comprehend!!! You can have 5 to 7 on your roster each year, because they are there for 4 years. Do the math!!!!!

[rocky_warrior]

I can almost guarantee we could get a new up and comer every 3-5 years as coach and match this season's BE record.

Keno Davis would like to interview with you.

[willie warrior]

Maybe you should read and comprehend!!! You can have 5 to 7 on your roster each year, because they are there for 4 years. Do the math!!!!!

I know Rawdog: Touche.

[Goose]

Rocky--Get the point but the jobs are apples and oranges. Keno Davis could be 9th place at MU in my opinion. My point is simply MU made a call to keep the guy they believe will deliver the goods.

[Marquette84]

What exactly is the main point trying to be achieved between Marquette84 and Pakuni's arguing?

That 84 is implying maybe Marquette as a team this year should have won an extra game or two, even though the bottom line of MU still making the big dance and then the Sweet 16 pretty much would have rendered that extra win or two irrelevant?

It just strikes me as they are having this long argument over semantics which are largely unimportant anyways. Oh well, to each their own i guess.

My beef is with those who repeatedly trot out "we were young" or "we were inexperienced" to make excuses.

As I said before, we had a primary rotation of 3 seniors, 2 juniors, 1 3rd year soph, 1 soph and 1 frosh as the main rotation, plus one more frosh and one more soph getting less meaningful minutes.  We were not a young/inexperienced team this year.

Pakuni feels that a player that misses one or two months of practice gained no meaningful experience in the other 10 or 11 months of the year and should be lumped together with incoming freshmen in a "less than one year of D1 experience" category  I disagree--I think a player gains quite a bit of experience even if he misses a month or two of practice.  Pakuni also feels that JUCO experience doesn't count--and that some HS leagues provide better experience.  Again, I disagree, citing a comparison of Crowder versus Jones.

MU Atl is still upset over the fact that I dared to question his "universally accepted truth" that young teams improve more than mature teams over the course of a season.  I merely pointed UConn--youngest in the league--as an example of a team that started with a 10 game winning streak (including MSU and Kentucky) despite their youth.  I also pointed out that some very experienced teams (Villanova, one of the most experienced teams in the league) managed to get worse as the season progressed, while other experienced teams (St. Johns) showed a significant amount of in-season improvement.   

And why did MU Atl get involved initially?  Because I commented that if Buzz had the team playing like they did against Xavier and Syracuse in the NCAA tournament, we would have contended for the Big East title. 

Apparently, it was too much to think that Buzz actually motivated and prepared and coached us to better performance in the tournament--because it means he didn't do it earlier in the season and therefore might bear some of the responsibility for the  losses.

Much better to pretend that it was our "youth" and "inexperience" that limited us early in the year, because that's the only way to  absolve coaching from bearing any of the responsibility. 

[Marquette84]

Maybe you should read and comprehend!!! You can have 5 to 7 on your roster each year, because they are there for 4 years. Do the math!!!!!

But 40% will transfer, so you need 5 to 7 a year as frosh in order to have 3 or 4 make it to senior year.