Most improved player

[ecompt]

I'm sure Mike Deane's late-season resume has served him well in landing the top-notch jobs he has had since leaving Marquette.
As for MU fading down the stretch, I am sure Murff is 100 percent correct even though he has never attended a Tom Crean practice in either February or March. Diener and Jerel must have suffered their injuries BECAUSE Tom's practice was too tough.

[MUDPT]

While McNeal and Diener's injuries were probably isolated incidents, I do not think it's a coincidence that about one guy goes down every year with a stress fracture or a chronic ankle sprain. 

[jtate15]

While McNeal and Diener's injuries were probably isolated incidents, I do not think it's a coincidence that about one guy goes down every year with a stress fracture or a chronic ankle sprain. 

Be mindful that for the past few years that guy was Mike Kinsella. So with it being one player repeatedly, it would be a bit of a stretch to say the injuries are a result of TC's end season management. Especially of the injuries occur in games.

[CWSKeith]

It is great news to read about Hayward's shooting progression, no doubt, but I don't find it particularly surprising.  Even though the stats didn't reflect it, I thought Hayward was one of the best pure shooters on the team last year.  He's got a nice rythm into his shot and when the ball leaves his hands, it just looks pretty.

I expect Marquette's shooting percentage to go up this year, in part because they should be getting more high percentage shots (due to a [hopefully] more up-tempo style of play), but also because there will be more weapons on the floor.  I just hope James is on board and will understand that beating his man off the dribble and dishing will be much more effective than trying to go one-on-one with the other team's PG.

[Harrison]

Murf likes to blather on about practice length and intensity.  How would he know?  Crean closes practices.  Additionally crean has on a number of occasions spoke of how he has shortened practices over the last number of years down the stretch.  Murf also like to beat the players getting hurt due to the long hard practices. 

I have mentioned the fact that the games are much more difficult and said "show me a coach in America with as good a second half as a first half".  I guess i should have thrown in the qualifier " one with a good program".

As i said before I would put the issue on stength of the competion.  But with that said we would all like to see the team perform better in Feb. and March.  While we cannot expect them to win at a November clip we have underporfomed what we would like to see.  I will argue as I have before this has little to do with practices.  The true bottom line is a lack of talent.  More specifically the lack of talented depth.  Travis gets hurt ...no back up PG of any talent.  Last couple years we had a significant dropoff after the 7th man or so.  The teams we are playing in feb and March  are more talented than us 6 through 10.  Crean needs to miss less on these players and we need to increase our depth to take the next step.  the 10th rated class in the conference needs to be improved upon. 

[muwarrior87]

I think this coming year the drop off between our 6-10 guys and our opponents will not be as drastic.  The guys we have coming in and the improvements that have been made by our current players will help to solidify the depth and off the bench ability of this team in the near future.