Almost nothing again from Dwight Burke

[MU Avenue]

I was unable to watch Marquette take on Utah State on Friday, but have read several reports on the game and comments from fans.

Based on what I have read and on the box score, Dwight Burke was again a nonfactor.

In 24 minutes of play, Burke was 0-1 from the floor and grabbed four rebounds, while committing a turnover and three personal fouls.

Burke is what he is, of course. But it is difficult to keep seeing these performances game after game, season after season, and to keep wondering why Burke has shown so little improvement over four years and what this team could be if it had a big man who posed some threat on even one end of the floor.

Although he is a reported 6-foot-8 and 250 pounds, Burke rarely mixes it up under the boards. He tends to be a spectator as other players battle for rebounds.

Burke's seeming lack of motivation to improve and contribute in bigger ways is a huge source of frustration.

[nyg]

Burke has been like that since day one on campus.  His role is not one of a scorer, but to play halfway decent defense, maybe get a rebound here or there and stay out of foul trouble.  Let the other players score.  But, he always seemed to work hard and appears to be a team player.  He can only go so far on his limited ability and maybe he can produce just alittle bit more in the game on Sunday.

Lack of recruiting a bigman has been brought up on more than one occasion, and still a problem going into next year with projects like Otule and McMorrow.   

[4everwarriors]

With the obvious amount of playing time available, it is mind boggling that a legit center hasn't been recruited. Willing to give Buzz a little more time to get this done. His former boss is 100% to blame for the current state of affairs. Then again, maybe the 5's out there were smarter than we think when Crean approached them.

[NCMUFan]

Flash - 5 spot is our weakness!  Burke does what he can do.  Get over it and move on.

[downtown85]

Burke was good on defense in the USU game.  He pushed their big redheaded kid (who is USU's leading scorer) out of the low block so he could never set up on offense.  That kid was held to way under his season average. I think he did a good job on D generally when he was on the floor.

[JTBMU7]

i dont think he is expected to score/pull down a lot of boards. i think his job is to contain their bigs and prevent them from getting in position to get rebounds. he's actually done a decent job at that, guys like butler and mcneal can get a lot of boards when they play with a guy like burke. he's not pretty, and he certainly doesnt fill the stat sheet, but he's a hard worker who helps in a lot of ways that don't show up in the box score. that being said, he should be able to score 4-8 pts per game by this point in his career, just another big man that failed to develop under TC. Lets see what Buzz can do with Otule, Roseborough and McMorrow...

[deep vacuum]

I think this is a pretty good summary of Burke's performance from the USU game.  From Strotty's blog.  http://strotty.wordpress.com/

"C Dwight Burke (0-1 fg, 0 points, 3 reb, 0 ast, 0-0 ft)  Not a whole lot in the scorebook for Burke, but he was outstanding in the low post on Wilkinson.  Most of Wilkinson's points came against Hayward or outside 15 feet.  Burke was great on the big man, and despite his drive that drew a charge early in the game he didn't make many mistakes.  It didn't show up in the box score, but Burke had a huge impact on this game.  GRADE: B-"

[Brewtown Andy]

Was there this much complaining about Terry Sanders?

[DomJamesToTheBasket]

He leaves something to be desired, but he also does the dirty work with little recognition. He is a major factor on this team.

[StillWarriors]

He's not great, but imagine if he got hurt and wasn't in there.....he beats the alternatives at this point

[Lennys Tap]

Dwight Burke is closer to 6'6" than 6'8", can't jump and can't shoot. He hustles and plays decent D. Expecting anything more is unrealistic.

[MarquetteDano]

I noticed he fumbled two separate passes in the game.  He just doesn't have the hands to take bullet passes.  If you pass down to Burke it should be a lob or a bounce pass.  Please no more bullet passes... I am tired watching a good drive to the basket wasted as a turnover.

[GregClausenForever]

Frustrating when one of the guards sets him up perfectly and he drops the pass out of bounds?  Yes.

Do we have anything close to a 5? No.

Burke works hard.  He rebounds fairly well, and he's strong enough to force big men to work for their baskets.  He doesn't need to score when we have four other guys capable of putting up 15+ points any night (and yes, Jimmy Butler is one of those guys).

We also don't know what he means to this team in practice or the locker room.  He's a senior and probably has a bigger role behind the scenes than we know.

He commits some bad fouls, and his decision making often makes me wince.  But I certainly consider him more of an asset than a detriment to this team.

[mubball2009]

talk about your preemptive declarations. jimmy goes above 15 once or twice and know he is capable of doing it on any given night?

[Tribby]

Was there this much complaining about Terry Sanders?

Terry Sanders actually contributed a few points and rebounds from time to time. So no.

[ATWizJr]

This is the same rhetoric we all heard from the DJ detraactors before he was injured. 

And, no, I'm not equating DJ with Dwight. 

However, the loss of another starter and a big body at this point would impose additional stress on our sorely taxed bench that we really don't need. 

Appreciate Dwight for what he is and what he does as he is doing all he can.

[Tom Crean's Tanning Bed]

Terry Sanders actually contributed a few points and rebounds from time to time. So no.

If you look at Burke's numbers from early last season, he WAS on his way to becoming that Terry Sanders role.  Then Crean decided to pull him from the rotation in Big East play and he kinda lost his mojo.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/gamelog?playerId=26969&year=2008

Yeah, there was some incosistency in the numbers, but the way Crean killed his minutes later on, it killed partially whatever chance Dwight had to develop that consistency. 

[Brewtown Andy]

Terry Sanders actually contributed a few points and rebounds from time to time. So no.

I remember being deathly afraid of Terry Sanders shooting the ball at any point.

[Tom Crean's Tanning Bed]

Sanders had a very good senior year.  And if you look at the stats, showed a pretty decent development curve.  He was definitely overrated out of HS, but he put together a solid senior year.  6.4 PPG and 4.6 RPG in about 23 minutes a game.

http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/player/marquette/terry-sanders/compare

[Daniel]

Burke was good on defense in the USU game.  He pushed their big redheaded kid (who is USU's leading scorer) out of the low block so he could never set up on offense.  That kid was held to way under his season average. I think he did a good job on D generally when he was on the floor.

+1.  Dwight played a pretty solid defensive game.  We aren't going to get much on offense - we all kinda know that!  Now if Otule could just give us some defense , maybe he'd get in.

[mviale]

Burke is a Senior and playing his last minutes of his career.  Did you really expect a change in the tournament?

[bma725]

Burke's seeming lack of motivation to improve and contribute in bigger ways is a huge source of frustration.

That has to be one of the most idiotic things I've ever read on any of these boards.  Burke is incredibly motivated to improve and works just as hard if not harder than anyone on the team trying to get better. 

He's just not that talented to begin with, and no amount of work is going to make him into what you want him to be.

[lab_warrior]

I thought DB had a huge stop there near the end of the game, forced Wesley into a bad shot in the lane.  He played as well as we want him too...his role is to defend, rebound, and lay it in when set up.

[drewm88]

Count me as a big DB fan.

He's not a scorer and not much of a rebounder. That's not his role. He does a fine job, given his abilities, of defending opposing bigs. As mentioned above, he keeps them off the boards which leaves rebounds for Butler/Wes/etc to grab.

IMO, he's improved quite a bit over the years. He does not try to stretch his game like he used to. That's why yesterday was one of the rare times you saw him get an offensive foul. You also don't see him commit dumb fouls anywhere near as often as he used to (moving screens, over the back.) That's refreshing when you think back to Fitz and how he never stopped committing dumb fouls.

Plus, he seems like a great guy. No, he's not the caliber of a lot of his opponents or teammates. Yes, I'm extremely glad he's a Warrior.

[MU Avenue]

My points about Dwight Burke are that he is too deficient in too many areas and that he has shown almost no improvement over four full seasons.

I find these facts odd and frustrating. Don't you?

I know Burke is not a standout in any aspect of the game, but he seems to be struggling today just as he did as a freshman and a sophomore. Certainly the statistics would indicate this is true.

This Marquette team could be a powerhouse if it had even a "B+" or maybe even a "B" big man.

At the risk of being repetitive, when Burke is on the floor, it often seems like MU is playing four on five.

I know Burke is who and what he is. But his per-game patterns of scoring almost no points, grabbing less than a handful of rebounds and committing too many fouls, oftentimes early in the contest, are not where Burke should be in the twilight of his collegiate basketball career.