Seth Davis on the Warriors

[Warrior Forever]

He touches on 20 pressing topics as Midnight Madness approaches.  Nothing earth shattering, but I feel he lays out the question we all have.

Marquette: How small can small ball get?

It seems like every year in October, we're talking about Marquette's big problem -- or more accurately, its bigs problem. This year that problem is even, uh, bigger. The Golden Eagles' two starting forwards from last season, Ousmane Barro and Dan Fitzgerald, have graduated. The only remaining player taller than 6-8 is a freshman, Chris Otule, a 6-10 center who is considered a long-term project. The Eagles' most accomplished forward is Lazar Hayward, a 6-6 swingman who specializes in making three-pointers (he converted a team-best 45.1 percent from behind the line last year).

Of course, Marquette will again boast the very formidable guard trio of Dominic James, Jerel McNeal and Wes Matthews, and that alone should make this team competitive in the Big East. McNeal especially had a great year last season, when he averaged 23 points and 6.1 rebounds over Marquette's final six games. As much as I respect those three guards, unless someone else gives Marquette a strong post presence, it will be hard for this team to play deep into the NCAA tournament.

[4everwarriors]

Crean's annual inability to recruit any big men other than projects continues to haunt MU.

[RawdogDX]

and his ability to recruit everything else continues to keep us ranked and expectations high.

[tower912]

Seth isn't wrong.   However, if we can somehow get 8 and 10 a night from Burke, Otule, and Hazel and avoid betting lit up for 20 and 12 from the opposing 5 every night, we will be competitive.   Early prediction:  Harangody sets a career high against us in South Bend.   Thabeet, unless he has made tremendous progress, is not an offensive focal point.

[MuMark]

Hard to take Seth too seriously when he doesn't even know that Fitz wasn't a starter for us.........

[ATWizJr]

Right.  Since Seth didn't know that Fitz wasn't a starter our "bigs" problem really doesn't exist.  Whew!  I feel much better now.

[77ncaachamps]

and his ability to recruit everything else continues to keep us ranked and expectations high.

Regardless of the coach, I expect both to occur as expectations will ALWAYS be high. MU fans will have it no other way.

However, I'll give Crean the credit for the former. But the focus on the guard game did hurt us.

[muball]

Fitz was tall but he never played like a big, didnt board, defense weak in the post, and no post game. Height but a 6 5 game he had. Not a loss in the front line.

[ecompt]

Right. Ooze is a loss, Fitz isn't, even if he hit some very important shots for us the past three years. Burke and Hazel have to hold their own in the middle. I could see Otule playing a slew of minutes at ND after both DB and PH pick up their third fouls in the first five minutes.

[Mayor McCheese]

Although I realize we lack depth at the forward position, and we look on the schedule and see games against teams like Notre Dame and freak out because Harangody is going to eat us alive.  Teams have to look at Marquette on the schedule and freak out because we bring in 3 senior guards who have played since they were freshman and are all capable of putting 20+ on the board.  There aren't many teams in the nation that would be able to guard our trio of guards, and all the different looks we can bring in due to our depth at the guard position.

[Marquette84]

Its interesting to note that we were extremely competitive against teams with stronger traditional frontcourts--ND w/Harangody, Pitt with Blair & Young, Georgetown w/Hibbert, Stanford w/ the Lopez twins. 

Putting aside, UL and UConn (who were simply better teams overall), we had a much harder time against teams with taller wings with outside range--Duke's Singler, WVU's Alexander, SU's Green. Fitz was tall enough, but too slow.  Everyone else was too short. The answer to winning these types of games isn't going to be whether we can get Otule to play more minutes--it will be whether we can get McNeal-like defense out of a taller guy like Butler, Hazel or Fulce.