NCAA Coaching "Legend" Stew Morrill "improves" to 1-7 in the tourney

[The Lens]

NM

[nyg]

Like Oliver Purnell at Clemson.  I think he is 0 for 6 now. 

[ChicosBailBonds]

NM

Really....really?  He just took a team with 1/5th the talent of MU and pushed us to a one point game.  They did the same thing to Kansas a few years ago and beat OSU.  He coached a WAY better game than Buzz did today and you know it.

We got damn lucky.   I can't remember..... who said this was going to be a brutally close game and not a blow out.  Hmmmm.

Incidentally, Merrill will be in the Hall of Fame most likely. He'll get his 500th win next year.  Let's hope Buzz gets there.

[jmayer1]

Blah, blah, blah

I can't really point to any big mistakes buzz made but I don't think your boy stew should have went away from the post in the last few minutes.

If this guy is such a legend he would a) have a few more postseason wins instead of close calls or b) coach at a bigger program.

[Marquette Mama]

Everyone on this board has way more basketball knowledge than I do... I am interested in what you guys thought of Morrill's playbook(s).  It looked really old school, although clearly works pretty well for his team.

[OregonWarrior]

Why take a shot at Morrill? He wasn't bad-mouthing the Marquette program or anything. His team played a fantastic game against us, which, as everyone likes to say, should be blowing out teams like this because of our superior Big East schedule.

I'm relieved we won. I'm not sure how trashing Morrill enters into the thought-process immediately following the game.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Blah, blah, blah

I can't really point to any big mistakes buzz made but I don't think your boy stew should have went away from the post in the last few minutes.

If this guy is such a legend he would a) have a few more postseason wins instead of close calls or b) coach at a bigger program.

I'm not the only one calling him a legend mind you.....almost 500 wins gets you that designation.  Look through the basketball publications and journals.

And many coaches don't want to change programs.  You do realize this, right?  Plenty of coaches that have stayed at smaller programs for many years, including Davidson's coach.  Please don't judge a coach just on whether they move up in the job ranks. Is Phelan not a legendary coach because he stayed where he was all those years? 


Incidentally, Morrill is a finalist this year for the Henry Iba and Skip Prosser awards.  Only one of 12 finalists.

[StillWarriors]

Blah, blah, blah

I can't really point to any big mistakes buzz made but I don't think your boy stew should have went away from the post in the last few minutes.

If this guy is such a legend he would a) have a few more postseason wins instead of close calls or b) coach at a bigger program.

I agree. I was amused by all the angst over going against this "legendary coach" when the bracket was announced. I follow hoops pretty closely and never heard of the guy.

You are absolutely right about them stopping going inside. The game turned when we stopped shooting threes (thanks, Wes) and went inside. They did the exact opposite and bailed us out.

I thought our guys were strong enough mentally not to lose confidence, and that's been a great strength of the team. Today, the way Wes and Jerel shot there is no way they aren't fighting themselves mentally. Gonna have to get over that in a hurry or we're done. If they can get hot though they're due to light it up big time.

[ChicosBailBonds]

East Coast Bias     You need to get out of Cleveland more often.



You're not following hoops very closely if you don't know who Merrill is, at least on this side of the country.  THey win like 92% of their games at home and he's averaging something like 26 wins a year the last decade.

[Big Papi]

Two things:

Blasting Morrill is uncalled for.

So is Chicos tooting his own horn when he got something right for once.  I don't know how someone goes from Utah State having 1/5 the talent of ours and than saying its going to be a close game.  

[sailwi]

As I recall USU fans labled Morill as a genius, not so much so.

[StillWarriors]

East Coast Bias     You need to get out of Cleveland more often.



You're not following hoops very closely if you don't know who Merrill is, at least on this side of the country.  THey win like 92% of their games at home and he's averaging something like 26 wins a year the last decade.

...and they play nobody. Does he have a nice program? Yes-clearly he's had great regular season success, but let's not pretend it's anywhere near the same level as the upper echelon teams and leagues. They almost beat us today (and I don't think they played as well as they could), but they'd be a .500 or worse team in the Big East, ACC and possibly even the Big 10.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Why take a shot at Morrill? He wasn't bad-mouthing the Marquette program or anything. His team played a fantastic game against us, which, as everyone likes to say, should be blowing out teams like this because of our superior Big East schedule.

I'm relieved we won. I'm not sure how trashing Morrill enters into the thought-process immediately following the game.

They're not, they are taking a shot at me because I dared to say this would be a tough game this week and that Merrill is a coaching legend in these parts (I'm on the west coast).  It is what it is.  Some people like to just look at a few games and not the body of work or the talent level the coach has.  If they aren't at a BCS school they must not be a great coach, etc.  Again, it is what it is.    We got lucky as hell today, Utah State was well prepared.

[BrewCity83]

Those play cards they use are gay.

[MarquetteDano]

Those play cards they use are gay.

Given that there are two different ones and they could go either way, I would say they are more bi-sexual than gay.   

[Pakuni]

We got lucky as hell today, Utah State was well prepared.

They were so well prepared that they were down 14 points with 5:30  left in the first half while shooting almost 25 percentage points below their season average.
Sure hope Buzz doesn't prepare his team that way for Mizzou.

Utah State was a beneficiary of a terrible 15-minute stretch for MU in the second half. They were doing nothing special other than taking advantage of Marquette's atrociousness. Had this game gone the other way, it would have been because MU blew it, not because USU took it from them.

This may be the first time I can recall that a coach was praised for his team scoring 15 points below their season average, shooting almost 9 percentage points below their season average, being outrebounded by a smaller team and losing to an opponent that shoots 36 percent.

Heck of a game, Stew. As an MU fan, I appreciate it.

[sailwi]

have another cheesbuger Stu

[ChicosBailBonds]

Two things:

Blasting Morrill is uncalled for.

So is Chicos tooting his own horn when he got something right for once.  I don't know how someone goes from Utah State having 1/5 the talent of ours and than saying its going to be a close game.  

Something right for once?  Come on, I called Mr. Hayward a complete #$&#(& and nailed that.  Give me some credit.   


And you go from saying USU has 1/5 the talent of MU to being a close game because they have a very good coach....coaching can take you a long way and sometimes covers up talent levels. 

As Stillwarriors correctly stated, they "don't play anyone" yet for a team that doesn't play anyone, they sure looked damn good against a Big East team today that was supposed to waltz.

[ChicosBailBonds]

They were so well prepared that they were down 14 points with 5:30  left in the first half while shooting almost 25 percentage points below their season average.
Sure hope Buzz doesn't prepare his team that way for Mizzou.

And so that would mean we were so well prepared that we managed to be down 6 points with under 5 minutes to play and decided to waste 25 minutes shooting perimeter jump shots during the middle part of the game.   I sure hope Buzz doesn't prepare his team to play the way we did against Utah State.  Not a good offensive game plan, period!

The good news is that the Missouri game will allow us to play free-for-all basketball where things should go well for us.  But today, not a good game plan.  We should have been attacking the rim all day long and for 25 minutes we didn't.  I don't know why.

[AlumKCof93]

Did you think USU looked good today or that MU looked bad?  I thought Marquette's inability to put points on the board had more to do with their inability to hit anything than the defense they were playing against. I thought MU got lucky they were matched up against Utah St - almost any other team would have destroyed us today.

[sailwi]

Agree with KC thought it was more that we were bad vs USU was good, oh well survive and play agian on Sunday.  Happy we won, hope we shoot better on Sunday.

I also hope everyone has different  color headbands it seemed like Lazar was everywhere today.

[Pakuni]

And so that would mean we were so well prepared that we managed to be down 6 points with under 5 minutes to play and decided to waste 25 minutes shooting perimeter jump shots during the middle part of the game.   I sure hope Buzz doesn't prepare his team to play the way we did against Utah State.  Not a good offensive game plan, period!

Not sure I get your point here. I already said MU was atrocious for 15 minutes of the second half.
But MU being atrocious does not mean Morrill coached a good game, does it?

The facts are these:
1. USU scored well below their season average.
2. USU shot well below their season average.
3. USU got off to a terrible start in which they had trouble defending MU and struggled to score, or even get good looks, themselves.
4. USU was outrebounded by a smaller team.
5. USU lost six-point lead in the closing 4:30 or so and only a couple of lucky threes at the very end kept it close.

How does one consider these facts and claims Morrill coached a good game and/or had his team well prepared? Just because they made it close? Funny, I didn't hear about that about Buzz after the losses to Louisville and Villanova.
I guarantee that had MU blown a six-point lead with that little time left, many here would be calling for the coach's head.

[rocky_warrior]

I also hope everyone has different  color headbands it seemed like Lazar was everywhere today.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.  But I thought the NCAA says that if you wear a headband it is considered part of your uniform.  Therefore, it must match the color of your jersey (home/away).

So, I think the team has to wear the same color - if they wear them at all.  but I agree, very confusing when watching a TV too far away at a sports bar.  Maybe that's why Lazar had great stats...he was credited with everything somebody with a headband did   

[tharocket]

I can't believe some of you are blasting Utah State's coach after that game. 

Bunch of damn Devendorf's is what you are.  They played fantastic basketball against us, and their Ginger big man took us to town.

What would happen in this game if two of their stars didn't foul out in the closing minutes?

[Blackhat]

Seems pretty classless to me too to be trashing Morrill after the game(and believe me I'm not the epitome of class).  He's put a lot of time and effort into the game and yeah the competition is weak but there are a lot of b-ball coaches in weak conferences that don't get close to 500 wins.