Jay Williams on Midnight Madness

[cheebs09]

Jay Williams said Buzz has done the best coaching job so far. He mentioned Dom's high level of play right now, which Gottlieb also said how well he as played during our highlight and highlighted his passes in their Gym Gems section. Nice to see us getting some love on National TV no matter what time it is at night lol.

P.S. I just saw the other post and I guess Gottlieb called us overrated, I only caught parts of it and must have selective hearing and missed the parts where Gottlieb said that.

[Brewtown Andy]

Gottlieb said it literally right before Williams praised Buzz.

[79Warrior]

Jay Williams said Buzz has done the best coaching job so far. He mentioned Dom's high level of play right now, which Gottlieb also said how well he as played during our highlight and highlighted his passes in their Gym Gems section. Nice to see us getting some love on National TV no matter what time it is at night lol.

P.S. I just saw the other post and I guess Gottlieb called us overrated, I only caught parts of it and must have selective hearing and missed the parts where Gottlieb said that.

Gotleib is a douche bag who has disliked MU for years.

[MisterJaylenBrownMU]

Gotleib is a douche bag who has disliked MU for years.

Thank you for such a well-articulated response. Who needs to address the central issue of Gottleib's premise when you can just attack his character (and so eloquently!).  Sometimes I wonder why I even read message boards anymore. For every well-thought point or valuable opinion, there are 40 posts like this.

As far as Gottleib's argument goes, it's hard to disagree. I think we probably ARE overrated right now, given that our highest-quality win is over a Villanova team that is not playing at an elite level. If we beat both ND and GTown, then we should justify our top-10 ranking. Until then, I think this team has something to prove. Given how we've been playing, I can see this team finishing around 15 in the polls, but 10 might be a stretch. I hope they prove me wrong.

[Warrior]

Gotleib is a douche bag who has disliked MU for years.

Agreed or +1 or whatever you prefer. 

[ErickJD08]

Thank you for such a well-articulated response. Who needs to address the central issue of Gottleib's premise when you can just attack his character (and so eloquently!).  Sometimes I wonder why I even read message boards anymore. For every well-thought point or valuable opinion, there are 40 posts like this.

As far as Gottleib's argument goes, it's hard to disagree. I think we probably ARE overrated right now, given that our highest-quality win is over a Villanova team that is not playing at an elite level. If we beat both ND and GTown, then we should justify our top-10 ranking. Until then, I think this team has something to prove. Given how we've been playing, I can see this team finishing around 15 in the polls, but 10 might be a stretch. I hope they prove me wrong.

[/b]

I am starting to hate these posts.  First off, we play the team on the court.  We did what any top ten team would do... win.  Your basically saying that every top ten team would be undefeated had they played our schedule and even if it were true, it wouldn't matter because beating TN and Dayton would mean nothing to you.  SOOO, even if MU was 19-0, MU would be overrated because we don't have any quality wins which is stupid.  If the polls come out tomorrow and we are 7 or 8, does that mean I think we are the seventh or eighth best team in the nation, probably not... Do we deserve to be ranked 7 or 8 right now, yes.  We are winning games and that's all that matters.

[MisterJaylenBrownMU]

Using that logic, though, the very concepts of "overrated" and "underrated" are moot. (the team was ranked at X in the polls because that's where they should be.) First, yes, I think Duke probably would be undefeated playing our record. Same goes for a couple other teams playing better than we are right now like Wake Forest or UNC.  Second, I think the polls exist to try to determine what the best teams are at the current time in linear order. Given that purpose, I don't think Marquette deserves to be ranked at 7 or 8, even though that's what will happen tomorrow. If we were 19-0, that certainly would be different. It's not just quality wins, it's also the quality of the losses.

Gonzaga is around #23 in the polls despite being the Ken Pom #4 team in the nation. They've beaten Tennessee twice, lost in OT to UCONN, and (like MU), haven't lost to a team outside the RPI top-100. I think if Marquette had played UCONN, Utah, and Tennessee twice at this point in the season, we wouldn't be 17-2. In my opinion, they're massively underrated.

Likewise, Arizona State is the Ken Pom #7 team in the country, but the polls have them at around 16. They've lost 3 games to top-35 teams, but have also beaten Stanford, UCLA, and Arizona. Something tells me that we wouldn't be 17-2 against their schedule either.

My point is just that I think Marquette has earned a high rank and are fun to watch, but I don't consider us worthy of a top-10 ranking yet. There's a reason why Ken Pom has us at #24, and it's not that he's a Marquette hater. The next few weeks should be very revealing about how good this team is.

[ErickJD08]

Using that logic, though, the very concepts of "overrated" and "underrated" are moot. (the team was ranked at X in the polls because that's where they should be.) First, yes, I think Duke probably would be undefeated playing our record. Same goes for a couple other teams playing better than we are right now like Wake Forest or UNC.  Second, I think the polls exist to try to determine what the best teams are at the current time in linear order. Given that purpose, I don't think Marquette deserves to be ranked at 7 or 8, even though that's what will happen tomorrow. If we were 19-0, that certainly would be different. It's not just quality wins, it's also the quality of the losses.

Gonzaga is around #23 in the polls despite being the Ken Pom #4 team in the nation. They've beaten Tennessee twice, lost in OT to UCONN, and (like MU), haven't lost to a team outside the RPI top-100. I think if Marquette had played UCONN, Utah, and Tennessee twice at this point in the season, we wouldn't be 17-2. In my opinion, they're massively underrated.

Likewise, Arizona State is the Ken Pom #7 team in the country, but the polls have them at around 16. They've lost 3 games to top-35 teams, but have also beaten Stanford, UCLA, and Arizona. Something tells me that we wouldn't be 17-2 against their schedule either.

My point is just that I think Marquette has earned a high rank and are fun to watch, but I don't consider us worthy of a top-10 ranking yet. There's a reason why Ken Pom has us at #24, and it's not that he's a Marquette hater. The next few weeks should be very revealing about how good this team is.

Then why did Duke lose to Michigan?  WF lost to Virginia Tech?  UNC lost to BC (the same team that lost to Harvard a few days later)?  There is no team out there (maybe Pitt) that you can argue to be undefeated with our schedule.  AGAIN... All we can play the teams on our schedule.  And you have yet to explain why a undefeated MU team would mean MU is a top ten team.  Where would their quality win come from?

[MisterJaylenBrownMU]

Duke lost to Michigan (better statistically than Dayton), and they lost on the road. Besides that one blemish, they've beaten Michigan, Purdue, Xavier, VA Tech, Davidson, FL State, GTown, and Maryland. I might be wrong, but my hunch is that Marquette loses between 3 and 4 of those games at a minimum. Wake loses to VA Tech (also statistically better than Dayton), but also beats Baylor, UNC, BC, and Clemson. I'm almost positive that Marquette isn't 16-1 with that schedule. UNC loses to BC (almost identical statistically to our Dayton loss), but beats Kentucky, Michigan State, Virginia, Miami, and Clemson. And I don't think there will be much debate on this board that we are better than any of these teams right now. That doesn't mean we can't beat them, it just means it will happen once every 8 or 10 games.

Given that the only currently ranked team that we have beaten is Villanova, who is barely hanging on in the top-25, I think there's a great argument that all 3 of these teams might be undefeated with our schedule. Regardless, though, that's completely beside the point. I'm not arguing that basketball is totally predictable and that highly ranked teams don't lose. It's a dynamic process. I'm just saying that when you look at the low-strength of our wins with the low-strength of our losses (at least the Dayton loss), I don't see the resume of a top-10 team. Given our schedule, I believe that at least 10 teams would have an equal or greater record than us and have, in their own right, performed at a higher level given their schedule. Rankings shouldn't just be based on total wins. VMI is 16-3 and I don't think there's a great argument that they should be on our heels in the rankings just because they did what they were supposed to and won 16 games.

If we were 19-0 with a win against Tennessee, then we start to look like a top-ten team, albeit one still needing to face an elite team. Not having a blemish on your record is absolutely something to be weighed against high-quality wins, but that's irrelevant because we've already lost twice. Let's just hope that we take care of business against ND and GTown this week and start gearing up for the meat of the schedule!

[MUSF]

So what teams behind us should be ahead of us?  If we're over-rated then the implication is that some teams behind us are better and should be moved up.

That is Erick's point.  We may eventually drop in the polls but you are judged by your current record and your current schedule.  That's why the polls get updated every week.  You may be right but instead of worrying about where we end up, why don't you just enjoy where we are?  We seem to have a large self-loathing fan base.  We don't have to apologize for being in the top ten.

[MisterJaylenBrownMU]

Haha self loathing? That might be a bit of a hyperbole. I hardly think that saying that our team is untested and a little overregarded by the media is a statement of self loathing. It's realism -- we're a very good team (I'd say around top-15), but I agree with Gottleib that our ranking is a bit inflated right now. We have a great record so far but we've lost a few winnable games, we haven't beaten any teams better than Villanova, and some of our wins have been less than awe-inspiring. I'm not saying we're terrible and shouldn't be getting any national attention, I'm just saying that we look more like a #16 or #18 team to me than #8. Lots of time left to prove me wrong, though.

As far as teams ranked under us that I think are playing better than we are, see above. I threw out Gonzaga and Arizona State, but I think you could make a good argument for UCLA and Xavier too. Butler deserves a look too, although I think if they're better it's only by a nose.

All I mean is that we're going to jump over Clemson...but does anyone really think that as of right now we're a better team than Clemson? They've lost 2 games: Wake and UNC. Our losses look much worse than theirs and we don't have much of an edge in quality of wins. That doesn't mean that we're a terrible team, it just means that I think they look more like a top-10 team than we do.

EDIT: Believe me, btw, I'm enjoying watching this team. They're a lot of fun to watch and I wish I was still a student to see them in person. The question posed, though, wasn't "are you enjoying watching them", it was a question about whether Gottleib was on drugs calling us overrated. As much as I love this season so far, it's hard to disagree with him. That doesn't mean I'll be sitting in my chair throwing cheetos at the TV if Marquette beats ND by a point tomorrow. I'll love every second of it.

[Daniel]

We're 17 - 2.  That's a great start for MU.  So, enjoy.  And let's keep winning, and start tomorrow by neating ND.  Where they rank us in the polls is out of our control, but it's great national recognition for the university, and that's a good thing.

[ErickJD08]

So what teams behind us should be ahead of us?  If we're over-rated then the implication is that some teams behind us are better and should be moved up.

That is Erick's point.  We may eventually drop in the polls but you are judged by your current record and your current schedule.  That's why the polls get updated every week.  You may be right but instead of worrying about where we end up, why don't you just enjoy where we are?  We seem to have a large self-loathing fan base.  We don't have to apologize for being in the top ten.

Basically....

Look, the pollsters have to put ten teams in the top.  So Clemson or Xavier... REALLY?  I know their losses are to good teams but who did they beat?  And what ever team you name, does that tell you that Clemson/Xavier is WITHOUT A DOUBT more deserving?  I doubt it.  What about Syracuse?  They haven't beat anyone and they are ranked higher than us (ND is not going to be ranked tomorrow)  If you give Syracuse credit for ND, then you have to give us props for WV and WI because they were ranked when we played them. 

Look, again, I don't truly believe we are in the top 10 until we beat those top teams but its like any other ranking.  If we are ranked and we continue to win and teams in front of us lose, are we suppose to drop?   The point is that if the pollster put us wherever, if we win and other teams lose, our boys DESERVE to continue to climb the charts.   

[buckchuckler]

Michigan, Purdue, Xavier, VA Tech, Davidson, FL State, GTown, and Maryland. I might be wrong, but my hunch is that Marquette loses between 3 and 4 of those games at a minimum. Wake loses to VA Tech (also statistically better than Dayton), but also beats Baylor, UNC, BC, and Clemson. I'm almost positive that Marquette isn't 16-1 with that schedule. UNC loses to BC (almost identical statistically to our Dayton loss), but beats Kentucky, Michigan State, Virginia, Miami, and Clemson. And I don't think there will be much debate on this board that we are better than any of these teams right now. That doesn't mean we can't beat them, it just means it will happen once every 8 or 10 games.

What???? Who of Purdue, Xavier, Vtech, Davidson, FlState, Gtown and Md.  4 of these teams beat us??  I'm really not sure about that.

Baylor UNC, BC, and Clemson and Vtech.  I would guess we would be 4-1 after these games, just like Wake.

Kentucky, Michigan State, Virginia, Miami, and Clemson and BC.  Again I'm gonna say we would be 5-1 here just like UNC.

I'm not saying that we should be no. 1 or anything crazy like that, but I don't think your reasoning holds up.

[jaygall31]

All we have done is everything we've been asked (in BE so far). One game at a time...a great mentality that Coach Crean never had.

[legacy]

Thank you for such a well-articulated response. Who needs to address the central issue of Gottleib's premise when you can just attack his character (and so eloquently!).  Sometimes I wonder why I even read message boards anymore. For every well-thought point or valuable opinion, there are 40 posts like this.

As far as Gottleib's argument goes, it's hard to disagree. I think we probably ARE overrated right now, given that our highest-quality win is over a Villanova team that is not playing at an elite level. If we beat both ND and GTown, then we should justify our top-10 ranking. Until then, I think this team has something to prove. Given how we've been playing, I can see this team finishing around 15 in the polls, but 10 might be a stretch. I hope they prove me wrong.

For all the arrogance, this stream of posts isn't particularly intelligent.  First, no one argued that Duke shouldn't be ranked higher MU, only that losses to inferior schools happen, even to top teams, so its doubtful that any team would go undefeated with Marquette's schedule.  Second, you focus on top 5 schools, and NO ONE has said that MU deserves a top 5 ranking.  Third, rankings are performance based, and so they are different than who is the best team.  I personally think UNC is still the best team, but I don't think they deserve to be ranked above Duke -- and I wouldn't call them underrated just because they aren't ranked #1.  Fourth, I agree we'll find out more about how good MU is after ND and Gtown, but come on.  If they win both of those, they may well deserve a top 5 ranking.   

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

The New Haven Register Sport's Columnist touched on this subject a couple weeks in regards to UConn.  But what he said is pertinent to this thread.  He said UConn does not look like a 3rd or 4th ranked team in the country to him and they would get killed against some of the past UConn championship teams.  However, his point was that THIS is what a 3rd or 4th ranked team in college basketball looks like in 2009 due to parity, more kids leaving for the NBA sooner, etc.   

[JSwarriors08]

Thank you for such a well-articulated response. Who needs to address the central issue of Gottleib's premise when you can just attack his character (and so eloquently!).  Sometimes I wonder why I even read message boards anymore. For every well-thought point or valuable opinion, there are 40 posts like this.

You have to love it when some troll rides in on a high horse and starts screaming complaints about ad-hominem attacks on a message board and then provides an unsubstantiared argument based on the interperetation of terms like "over-rated," which are entirely subjective and relative.

[StillAWarrior]

Thank goodness we have a tournament in March to sort all of this out.

As has been pointed out repeatedly in this thread, rankings by vote are inherently flawed and favor well-timed winning streaks above most other factors.  They also punish losses.  They're nice for generalities, but they're not a very good method of finer distinctions of who the better teams are.

When Marquette lost to Dayton (who was playing pretty well at the time) and Tennessee (ditto), they fell out of the rankings and were "underrated."  Now that they've had a nice winning streak (while other, higher ranked teams have lost some games) they are "overrated."

Although I love seeing Marquette as a top 10 team, I kind of look at rankings with a "plus or minus five spots" attitude.  Because that's how I look at them, I find it funny when someone posts, "I think we're overrated at 10; I think we're more like a 15."  The way the rankings work, the only difference between a 10 and a 15 is the timing of a loss.

Bring on the tournament.

P.S.  The BCS sucks and has ruined a perfectly good sport for me.

[NavinRJohnson]

It is clearly all relative. It is kinda like how we have been hearing how the Big Ten has improved so much this year...how is that exactly? Penn State, Minnesota, even Northwestern have gotten better, but the problem is, teams like Wisconsin, Indiana, even Ohio State, have clearly gotten worse.

To this point MU deserves its ranking, just as they will basically deserve whatever ranking they have 2, 3, 5 weeks from now based on what happens on the court.

[Mayor McCheese]

Haha self loathing? That might be a bit of a hyperbole. I hardly think that saying that our team is untested and a little overregarded by the media is a statement of self loathing. It's realism -- we're a very good team (I'd say around top-15), but I agree with Gottleib that our ranking is a bit inflated right now. We have a great record so far but we've lost a few winnable games, we haven't beaten any teams better than Villanova, and some of our wins have been less than awe-inspiring. I'm not saying we're terrible and shouldn't be getting any national attention, I'm just saying that we look more like a #16 or #18 team to me than #8. Lots of time left to prove me wrong, though.

As far as teams ranked under us that I think are playing better than we are, see above. I threw out Gonzaga and Arizona State, but I think you could make a good argument for UCLA and Xavier too. Butler deserves a look too, although I think if they're better it's only by a nose.

All I mean is that we're going to jump over Clemson...but does anyone really think that as of right now we're a better team than Clemson? They've lost 2 games: Wake and UNC. Our losses look much worse than theirs and we don't have much of an edge in quality of wins. That doesn't mean that we're a terrible team, it just means that I think they look more like a top-10 team than we do.

EDIT: Believe me, btw, I'm enjoying watching this team. They're a lot of fun to watch and I wish I was still a student to see them in person. The question posed, though, wasn't "are you enjoying watching them", it was a question about whether Gottleib was on drugs calling us overrated. As much as I love this season so far, it's hard to disagree with him. That doesn't mean I'll be sitting in my chair throwing cheetos at the TV if Marquette beats ND by a point tomorrow. I'll love every second of it.

Here we go... we will disect UCLA, Xavier, Butler and Clemson

We will start with UCLA... since they are one of the few teams in my eyes will just always be ranked due to their name.

UCLA is 15-4 (5-2 in conference)... their best OOC win was So. Illinois(really I couldn't find one).  Their best conference win is USC.
They have lost to Michigan(neutral), Texas(away), Arizona St.(home) and Washington(away)..... honestly, why are they ranked higher then a 17-2 team that is 6-0 in conference....  You shoot down Marquette because they have only beaten one ranked team... well UCLA lacks a victory against a ranked opponent, and was just shallacked against Washington.

Xavier now... good ole A-10 Xavier.

Xavier is also 17-2 like Marquette, and 5-0 in the A-10.  They have beaten Memphis as their best win, also have beaten Cinci(by 10... where we dismantled Cinci)... They have played the pits of the A-10, with the toughest A-10 opponent being Rhode Island...  Their two losses are Duke and Butler

Now Butler...
They play in the Horizon, which is never a good start, but they beat Xavier as mentioned before, they are 18-1, being 9-0 in the Horizon league.  Lost to Ohio St... If you want to make an argument that Marquette has played nobody, then how do you argue that Butler has, besides Xavier their toughest opponent has been UWM.

Lastly you mentioned Clemson... the same Clemson team who the past three years have start 10+ wins before gaining a loss... they are 17-2... like us... and have beaten nobody in the top 25, unless you count Illinois who wasn't ranked at the time they played them.  Their OOC schedule lacks any team worth 2 cents... besides Illinois, and will be an average team by years end.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/teams/schedule?teamId=228

Take a look at that OOC schedule, any season ticket holders who get pissed at who Marquette brings into town, check that schedule out... oof.
Wofford, Charlotte, Savannah St, Presbyterian, Liberty, South Carolina St, North Florida.... are you shitting me?


So there you have it MisterDMU... your precious teams that should be ranked higher then a 17-2 team playing in the Big East....

I love how you talk about how Marquette is over-rated, and then compared their schedule to teams in the top 5... to make an argument, you need to show teams ranked worse then Marquette, like I just did, and then show evidence that these teams deserve their ranking, with the only team possibly worth it is Butler, but really, how many times can we over-rank Butler, give them a 4-7 seed in the NCAA tournament, for them to lose in the first or second round before we realize there is no competition in the Horizon.  DePaul would be a powerhouse in the Horizon.

[StillWarriors]

It really all boils down to a ranking does not necessarily = how good the teams are. Is MU really the 8th (guessing that's where we'll be) best team in the country? Probably not.

Do we deserve to be ranked 8th based upon how the season has played out to date? Yes.

[muwarrior69]

That is why we play the NCAA tournament at the end of the Year! Anyone who claims the national champion is not the best team in the country is spouting sour grapes. The team that wins six in a row has earned that title, even if that team is a Monmouth, Rider or UWM. That is what makes college basketball the greatest spectator sport there is. This is not a popularity contest like college football. The best team is detemined by how well they play on the court.

[NavinRJohnson]

That is why we play the NCAA tournament at the end of the Year! Anyone who claims the national champion is not the best team in the country is spouting sour grapes. The team that wins six in a row has earned that title...

Agreed, the best team may not always necessarily win, but the most deserving one certainly does.