MUBB, athletics and academics, etc.

[lab_warrior]

You guys have taken this and drawn up all sorts of nightmare scenarios.  Knowing this policy exists, or soon would exist, Buzz still went out and got a verbal from the likes of Duane Wilson, who is looking more and more like a BE caliber player.  This isn't the end of the world.

+1

AGREED.  COMPLETELY.  Oh, and he went and offered Diamond Stone, too.  Guess Buzz is super concerned about the new "policy" affecting the program.  Kkeep thwarting Pilarz and Williams relentless quest to destroy MU basketball, Buzz! 

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

I think the whole white player thing is crazy talk. But, think higher standards limits the talent pool way too much for MU. Not a good enough school to play at a disadvantage to competition.

MAYBE... but we don't know what the standard is going to be.

Honestly, how many guys are barely getting by right now? I was always given the impression the players were decent students (like 2.5+).

Maybe I'm wrong.

Let's find out if there is a "new standard" before we freak out about ND people, crew cuts, white guys and no jucos.

C'mon guys.

[MUfan12]

I had heard about this right around the time muguru had posted, had exchanged PMs with both him and Sultan.

I have not been able to confirm what the changes are or will be, so speculating on the effect it will have is pretty futile. I also agree with Sultan that naming the players is unfair to them.

We'll all find out when the semester ends. No news would be the best news.

[Blackhat]

So highering standards means less jucos and less black athletes? I'm sorry THAT seems racist. Unless there is some ultra high standards being issued I don't think most athletes will notice in the future. Mu will just push them harder in the future.

Look at the rosters of ND, Duke, and Stanford.   Black athletes will have less opportunity at Marquette.  The pool will shrink.

[Goose]

Lab Warrior
Buzz is a recruiter and always be a recruiter. Do you think if he is thinking about leaving he gives up recruiting for a year? You are an idiot. offering a freshman is good PR for him if he stays or not. The kids come to play here because of him and relationships formed today work in his best interest regardless of who signs his check.

[TJ]

I am stuck in a foreign country with many dollars. I can only get out if you send $1000 to me.  I will share my fortune with you for your trouble.

I'm fairly certain this will work as people here seem to believe everything they hear, no matter how insane.

+1

[Hoopaloop]

Look at the rosters of ND, Duke, and Stanford.   Black athletes will have less opportunity at Marquette.  The pool will shrink.

Yet they still win at a high level.  Stanford has more titles than anyone in the country in sports except UCLA.

You keep predicting a drop off, why?  


Ultimately if what you say is true, then the irony is that Buzz messed with his own happy.  MU expects to win but win without the bad press.  There are plenty of programs that win consistently (if not more consistently than MU) over the years without the bad press.

If what I have read here is correct on the 1.8 GPA, we should be embarrassed that our guys can't meet those levels.  With all the help MU has for tutoring and academic resources, there is no way a student athlete should not be able to hit those marks.

[Hoopaloop]

Basically the end effective outcome will be more white players and less JUCOs, imo.  That will be the identity Pilarz wants, less dreads more crew cuts.  And as the "poor, tated" kids leave so will the off the court problems.

Probably wants an identity of winning without the negative press.  You and others here are predicting impending doom as if this can't happen.

Didn't MU go to a Final Four in the last ten years with far less negatives off the court?  Hasn't Wisconsin been a better overall program the last 15 years than Marquette without all the negatives off the court? 

It can be done.  Have you ever thought that MU could raise their academic profile even more and start to land some of those same kids that are going to Vanderbilt, Duke, Wisconsin, UCLA, Stanford, etc?

Wisconsin fans have every reason to laugh at our academic standards if what you and others are reporting in this thread are true.

[lab_warrior]

Lab -
Do you mean that you think this is meaningless panic because you don't think the new academic regulations will come to fruition, or because you think everyone is overreacting to what the fallout from those standards will be?

About the "policy" what's the best way to text/emoticon a "I don't know, or better yet, care" shoulder shrug?  Like most common sense people, I'll form an opinion about it, you know, WHEN IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS, as opposed to nervously crapping my pants about hypotheticals.    

About the overreacting to its effects: A resounding YES.  

Refresh my memory, did Buzz take the SMU job?  There was plenty of "evidence" and "sources" whipping up a poop tornado here saying that he was. And it was a whole steaming bag of wrong-o.

[mu03eng]

Yet they still win at a high level.  Stanford has more titles than anyone in the country in sports except UCLA.

You keep predicting a drop off, why?  


Ultimately if what you say is true, then the irony is that Buzz messed with his own happy.  MU expects to win but win without the bad press.  There are plenty of programs that win consistently (if not more consistently than MU) over the years without the bad press.

If what I have read here is correct on the 1.8 GPA, we should be embarrassed that our guys can't meet those levels.  With all the help MU has for tutoring and academic resources, there is no way a student athlete should not be able to hit those marks.

Have you played college athletics?  The tutoring and academic resources get them back to neutral at best considering how much time they are not actually in class and are on the road/playing/practicing.  They have to have a 2.0 to graduate(right now)  I don't have any issue with that whatsoever especially if we are competitive enough to put players into Europe and the NBA playing ball so their GPA isn't critical.  Plus we are giving educational opportunities to people who otherwise wouldn't have that chance why would we want to turn our backs on those folks?

[Blackhat]

Yet they still win at a high level.  Stanford has more titles than anyone in the country in sports except UCLA.

You keep predicting a drop off, why?  


Ultimately if what you say is true, then the irony is that Buzz messed with his own happy.  MU expects to win but win without the bad press.  There are plenty of programs that win consistently (if not more consistently than MU) over the years without the bad press.

If what I have read here is correct on the 1.8 GPA, we should be embarrassed that our guys can't meet those levels.  With all the help MU has for tutoring and academic resources, there is no way a student athlete should not be able to hit those marks.

We are not ND, Stanford, or Duke academically.  We'll be left with the sloppy seconds academic all-americans.  When Pilarz does the actual hardwork and gets us there as an instution, I will be all for those academic standards athletically.   

[MUMac]

You guys have taken this and drawn up all sorts of nightmare scenarios.  Knowing this policy exists, or soon would exist, Buzz still went out and got a verbal from the likes of Duane Wilson, who is looking more and more like a BE caliber player.  This isn't the end of the world.

Depends upon if Buzz has the transcripts of Wilson or not.  He may have spoken generically or asked for the transcripts.  I do not know that he has asked for or received them or not.  

[NersEllenson]

Looks like Chicos is back to fan the flames...uh..I mean Hoop.  I'm sure none of the guys on the 2003 team, or Wes, Rel and Dominic ever went out to bars or clubs in Milwaukee.  Sure none of them ever got in a fight...Dominic?  Rel?  Our current players weren't even drinking at the dang bar they were ticketed for being underage in...give me a break...like no underage athletes at Stanford, Duke, IU or UW...go to bars.  Hell the national story that came out on ESPN on this, the comments from people below the story were essentially:  "This is ridiculous.  Big deal."

The bad ink MU has gotten has been the result of a witch hunt by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Chicago Tribune.  Expose stories, intended to sell copies and win Pulizters.  No charges were filed in the assault cases.  MU followed its long standing policy on sex assault policy.  The basketball program/staff didn't make up the policy for how such things were handled.  Keep in mind, the sex assault allegations began as consensual, but then mid thrust apparently turned to non consensual.

[Hoopaloop]

astute observations from guru and yourself.   Never thought of it in that context.   This process was started a long time ago.   Cottingham first casualty, then the players, then Buzz.   Pilarz will be satisfied then when the Bill Carmody's of the world are all who will come here.

The comparisons of MU football in 1960 vs MU hoops in 2012 are so off base.  You lose credibility even sniffing in that arena.  Not even remotely close.  Look at MU football the previous two decades

1936 was the last formidable team we had and the year we went to the Cotton Bowl

1940-1944   One winning season

1945-1949  No winning seasons

1950 - 1954  Two winning seasons (including against "powers" Boston U, Detroit, South Dakota State, Santa Clara, North Dakota State)

1955-1960 No winning seasons

They are not remotely comparable on any level to basketball.

[mu03eng]

Probably wants an identity of winning without the negative press.  You and others here are predicting impending doom as if this can't happen.

Didn't MU go to a Final Four in the last ten years with far less negatives off the court?  Hasn't Wisconsin been a better overall program the last 15 years than Marquette without all the negatives off the court? 

It can be done.  Have you ever thought that MU could raise their academic profile even more and start to land some of those same kids that are going to Vanderbilt, Duke, Wisconsin, UCLA, Stanford, etc?

Wisconsin fans have every reason to laugh at our academic standards if what you and others are reporting in this thread are true.

What negative press has there been around academics?  If this is academic related than that has no bearing on the off the court issues.  This can't have anything to do with the off the court unless the BOT has drawn the conclusion that those with perceived academic issues are also causing trouble.

[Blackhat]

I was talking about their observations of Pilarz bringing in Duke, etc. administrators to tell Pilarz where he needs to take the athletic department.

[Hoopaloop]

I don't know...it's hard to argue against tougher academic standards, but we graduate 91% of our basketball players and 80% of African-American basketball players. I can't imagine 10-13 scholarship athletes that are graduating at that rate are going to have any measureable negative impact on our overall academic statistics.

It's a drop in the bucket and we're already doing very well in regards to the academic success of our basketball team. Really not sure tougher standards are needed there.

Graduation rates may not be the best way to look at it, or at least not the only way.  Year by year most of the team picks the same major and we all know what that major is.  Is a 70% graduation rate at UCLA in economics, history, political science the same at 91% in communications?   Not all majors are created equally.

[Hoopaloop]

Have you played college athletics?  The tutoring and academic resources get them back to neutral at best considering how much time they are not actually in class and are on the road/playing/practicing.  They have to have a 2.0 to graduate(right now)  I don't have any issue with that whatsoever especially if we are competitive enough to put players into Europe and the NBA playing ball so their GPA isn't critical.  Plus we are giving educational opportunities to people who otherwise wouldn't have that chance why would we want to turn our backs on those folks?

Have you?   Do you have four family members that have at major DI athletics at schools FAR better than Marquette that won national titles and still pulled in fantastic grades, including two that made academic all conference?   It can be done.

[TJ]

This just goes to show you that you can't skip a day this offseason.  More exciting around here than the regular season.  Finally all of the wild speculation has some firmer ground to stand on, but that still didn't prevent 4 pages of wild speculation and overblown doomsday scenarios.  Good stuff.

As for the news, if the administration feels that new higher standards for athletes are the best for the school, then so be it.  It may have an effect on basketball success, but the disaster scenarios presented here are humorous.  If the admin is applying the new policy "unfairly" as has been wildly speculated here, that would suck, but it would be a 1-2 year problem max and then no big deal after that.  "Hiroshima" this is not...

[Hoopaloop]

We are not ND, Stanford, or Duke academically.  We'll be left with the sloppy seconds academic all-americans.  When Pilarz does the actual hardwork and gets us there as an instution, I will be all for those academic standards athletically.   

Right, because from 2000 to 2008 we sure couldn't compete and had all kinds of off the court problems.  


More than likely, Father Pilarz and LW are saying get good athletic kids that will keep us out of the news and represent the university well. If you want to take a chance on a kid or two every year that is fine.  Taking a chance on 4 kids every year so a roster has more than 10 may not be so fine.  I do not know if that is what they are saying, but that seems to be what you and other are implying.  My belief is that it will be something in the middle where it comes down to quantity.

At the end of the day, Buzz could keep on recruiting his type of kids if they kept MU out of embarrassing situations.  His kids didn't do that and there comes a price to pay for that.

If you remember back there were probably 20+ posters here including two or three that really got under the skin of some posters here about the squirminess going on.  They implied other things were never even reported.  Based on what you and others are saying about the actions coming down from the university, maybe those posters were right and knew a lot more about what was going on then people here cared to admit.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

I was talking about their observations of Pilarz bringing in Duke, etc. administrators to tell Pilarz where he needs to take the athletic department.

Great point.

I'll add that to the list of schools that MU admin. should never talk to.

ND
Duke
Penn

Are there more?

Georgetown?
Boston College?

[Blackhat]

Right, because from 2000 to 2008 we sure couldn't compete and had all kinds of off the court problems.  


More than likely, Father Pilarz and LW are saying get good athletic kids that will keep us out of the news and represent the university well. If you want to take a chance on a kid or two every year that is fine.  Taking a chance on 4 kids every year so a roster has more than 10 may not be so fine.  I do not know if that is what they are saying, but that seems to be what you and other are implying.  My belief is that it will be something in the middle where it comes down to quantity.

At the end of the day, Buzz could keep on recruiting his type of kids if they kept MU out of embarrassing situations.  His kids didn't do that and there comes a price to pay for that.

If you remember back there were probably 20+ posters here including two or three that really got under the skin of some posters here about the squirminess going on.  They implied other things were never even reported.  Based on what you and others are saying about the actions coming down from the university, maybe those posters were right and knew a lot more about what was going on then people here cared to admit.

Pat Hazel stealing and James Matthews committing assault didn't happen?

[mu03eng]

Have you?   Do you have four family members that have at major DI athletics at schools FAR better than Marquette that won national titles and still pulled in fantastic grades, including two that made academic all conference?   It can be done.

Yes I have and yes it can be done because I did it myself.  

However I also fancy myself, humility aside, as very intelligent from a solid educational background before playing going to school.  Not everyone is going to have those same standards and capabilities.  Congrats to your family being able to pull that off, but I would argue they are more the exception than the rule....Academic All-American award is big deal because its very difficult.

All I'm saying is being a D1 revenue sport athlete is not easy and the university is using them to make money to pay for fancy new buildings.  However they are apparently willing to overlook all that because they have some high and mighty viewpoint.

[Blackhat]

Great point.

I'll add that to the list of schools that MU admin. should never talk to.

ND
Duke
Penn

Are there more?

Georgetown?
Boston College?

Bring in a couple schools that match our actual academic profile as an institution.  You want to change the standards for athletics that don't match us as a school yet?  Ask Duke, ND how to get there as an institution first.

[mu_hilltopper]

Ok .. I've tried to do a little re-pruning after Rocky dropped the bomb on this thread.  Cut out the beginning JJones stuff, cut out the end Ners/Hoop bs.

I'll probably regret this.