Exceeding Expectations?

[TJ]

One had to be high to be expecting an NCAA bid this year before the season started.

I would assume that Big East coaches have some smarts about them and that they are pretty plugged into the college bball scene in terms of returning players, recruits and the relative strength of their own conference.

They picked Marquette 12th of 16 in the conference, sight unseen.  While many might amend their ranking half way through, the expectation was that MU would be 12th, with no shot for an NCAA bid.

I'd say that Buzz and the team have exceeded those expectations.  Unless some of us are smarter than the conference coaches, B and the team should have exceeded ours.  (Some, I know, view themselves as smarter than the coaches.)

I wouldn't assume that any NCAA coaches care too much about filling out preseason ranking cards.

[TJ]

(Someone correct me if I am wrong) Marquette had the fewest returning points and minutes.  

Correct, but we also had the potential to have the most incoming points and minutes.  

If you thought going into this season that we were tourney bound, that means you think we were one of the top 6/7 teams in the Big East....

All offseason we kept hearing about a "down" Big East and how good our recruiting class was.  I certainly thought we could be top 8 with some luck.

I can name 5 teams that consistantly recruit better than MU year after year AND other teams with a better returning cast.

Ah, but only 2 teams recruited better than MU THIS year.  We have a very good 2009 recruiting class, ranked behind only Nova & UConn in the BE.  And they're playing up to it for the most part too.  And that's even without Junior.

 I just think this season proves that Buzz can make the most of what he has got and I really can't wait to see what he does when he gets more weapons.

No question, Buzz is doing a fantastic job.  Especially considering the injuries and short bench.  The players are doing a fantastic job too, especially the new guys.  Maybe it's just me, but I kinda expected a few of them to come in and succeed right away and take advantage of the opportunity that was in front of them.  Doesn't make me any less happy it happened.

[MUrugger]

I guess I need to be more specific.

To this point Marquette has exceeded MY expectations (I thought that was the only thing I was commenting on in the first place)...and the pre-season bloggers on this site that were counting up losses to Michigan and Xavier while predicting 6-12 BE records...and the announcers from Len Elmore to the present (FF and others) who have spoken of MU's surprising performance in the face of heavy graduation losses...and of ESPN sports desk analysts shocked that MU has given the 4th ranked team in the country all they could handle in suffering two 2-pt. losses...yeah I think MU has exceeded a lot of the expectations that were placed on them going into the season.

You're right Rocky that the final assessment might be that they come in where expected but for this Warrior...they've exceeded expectations so far.

[Daniel]

For me, they are playing better basketball in general than I thought they would, esepcially on offense.  They lost some games that we all thought they'd lose, but they kep those games a lot closer than I thought they would, so even tho they lost, they played better than I expected.

Long way to go and let's see if they keep the intenisty cranked.

[NersEllenson]

I know this argument gets beaten down around here every time it comes up, but we made the tournament in 2005 under similar circumstances.  We had Novak, Barro, and Fitz coming back, some role players and a solid recruiting class going into that season.  I'd say Hayward and Butler vs Novak/Barro/Fitz is a toss up, but maybe others feel differently.

I don't know why we wouldn't expect guys that Buzz recruited to be Big East players to come in and play at a high level.

So maybe expecting an NCAA bid is too strongly worded, but why should it have been out of the question?  We just did it with a senior leader and a solid group of newcomers 4 years earlier.

All in all a pretty good point - however, you mention 3 players (Novak, Barro and Fitzgerald) who were all 6"8" or taller.  Secondly, Buzz is doing this with basically just 2 of his recruits (DJO and Buycks) contributing.  Junior and Maymon don't count, and both were Top 75 guys.  So, this MU team has much less size than 2005, and is about 2 players less deep.  May not seem like a lot of difference compared to the 2005 team, but I think it is significant.  I'm very, very pleaased with how this edition of the Warriors are performing.  The Big East is much better this year than it was in 2005, so keep that in mind as well.