NSUM-MU Box Score / Crean post-game

[32NCAAs]

Things that immediately stick out for me:
*Hayward - 17 pts, 4 rebs, 3 asst, 2 steals in 15 min... he seems poised for a breakout year
*Ooze - only 16 min... is this just a precaution given our lack of depth with post players?
*McNeal - 4 TOs... got to protect the ball better
*Acker - 20 mins... will this be a typical workload for him?
*Rebs - out rebounded 38-35 tonight
*Shooting - 40% fgs, 19% 3's, 68% FTs... looks a lot like last year

[rocky_warrior]

Well, Burke was our leading rebounder with 6 (and had 5 steals! The new McSteal!).

Now...some things I jotted down while crean was talking post game...
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- Good win. Northern State beat Iowa in a scrimmage last night.  Marquette showed some maturity hanging in there.

- Exhibitions are good to play in front of crowd.  Scrimmages are invaluable becuase there is a chance to control part of it, and learn.

- Wesley has great confidence.  MU played like a veteran team tonight.  Made the extra pass, took only about 3 questionable shots.  Passing leads to confidence for a team.

- Hayward had a great 2nd half.  17 points in 15 minutes.  Leading scorers made their free throws.  Need to improve on that.

- Burke had 5 steals - very aggressive in the post.  Don't have a guy with lots of career blocks, so need to do a great job of position defense, swarming the post, and rotating.

- IUPUI play very fast. Will be lots of recruits in the building next Saturday night - would be great to see a good crowd

[rocky_warrior]

And notes from an interview with Lazar
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- Always looks at rebounds an turnovers after the game.  MU didn't have enough rebounds, but was good with pretty good turnovers.  Field Goal percentage he cares about for himself too.  Get in most trouble in practice if he doesn't get enough rebounds.

- Burke did a great job tonight, was all over the place. 

- Wants to defend better this year.  Worked on foot speed, and agility this summer.  Working on explosiveness too.  Play high and lose.

- Acker will be up on his man.  Quick and feisty, getting stronger every day.  Up tempo type of guy.

- Always call Blackledge "Trend".  Crean has confidence in him, and wants to play him.  He's athletic, long and tall.  He's agile.  He dunked on Hayward in practice, and Crean showed that in the locker room before the game.  Mbakwe joked that Hayward fouled him too.

- Northern State played hard.  Good team.  Great coach (has won 862 games).

[Wareagle]

Things that immediately stick out for me:
*Rebs - out rebounded 38-35 tonight

I think the rebounding statistics might be misleading here because NSU had so many more turnovers than MU, which led to more Marquette FGA's.  Northern had 18 more turnovers, which partially led to MU attempting 13 more field goals, which gave Northern more opportunities to rebound our misses.

[mu_hilltopper]

My notes .. this was MU's 7th game of the year .. 4 in Vancouver, 2 vs. KSU last week .. They should be pretty far along.

Those first 15 minutes were just brutal on the offensive side.  It was worrisome how poorly they shot FGs and FTs.  -- Defense was pretty good all game, but we're talking a D2 team, even if they are well coached.

Fitz 1 for 5?  Ouch.
DJ 3 for 8 .. 2 of those layups, so 1-6 from the field.  21 minutes?  Interesting.
Scott .. 11 minutes, hit his first bomb, missed his second.  Learning on defense.
Acker .. 20 minutes .. 5 efficient shots, made 2.  I'll take that every night. .. tenacious defense.  
Cube 1-6, ouch.
Ooze .. same old same old.

Lazar and Wes were the bright spots, clearly.  They showed a lot of improvement.  Lazar has a ton of upside.  6 for 10 in 15 minutes?  NICE.

.. The 20 steals .. huge number .. but NSU is no D1 team.

3 for 16 from 3 point land = ugly.  55% FT shooting in the first half = super ugly.  Got better, ended 68%.  Really, take out Burke and Ooze's FTs, and it's not a bad number. 

[77ncaachamps]

I don't care if it's a preseason game or not...nor if we're playing the Sisters of Mercy...getting OUTREBOUNDED better not be the "TREND" (pun intended) for this year.

I don't see a high FG% shooting team this year, so rebounds will be priceless!

[mu_hilltopper]

Oh .. another note.  The crowd.  12,997 was attendance .. 12,600 was the attendance last year for the Exhibition.  +400, which has to be all season ticket holders.  Can't be much walk up for NSU.

.. Maybe 6000 were actually in the seats. -- Student section was poor.  Maybe 2/3rds full in the lower bowl .. AND .. half of them left with 12-15 to go in the 2nd.  What's that about?

[TallTitan34]

I heard that a lot of people went to a concert on campus which possibly lowered the attendance as well.  LAME!  I'd expect a much bigger turnout for Saturday's game.

[State]

Some thoughts....

I'm not too worried about being out rebounded as we had some odd lineups at times--Acker, James, and Christopherson.  What is that?  An average height of 5'10". 

Trend had a tremendous putback dunk...highlight of the night.  He didn't play much---seemed very timid. 

Hazel looked lost...Trend dunk was actually over Hazel.

Offense is much like last year.  Not even looking to set up a half court set.  Run and gun and Run and Run...

James was cramping up again!!!  However, he had some sick passes when he was in...no arm sleeve!!!  Looked like his head is on straight..unlike--

New intro music--no more U2 "where the streets have no name"  instead Kayne West's new single...nice change...

The Jersey looked great...a little busy but the shorts, jerseys, warmups etc really look nice...

Crowd was OK but who cares---we'll show up when the games matter....great to be back at the BC...chills everytime!!

Looking forward to the season!!!

[TVDirector]

Acker looked good.... was winded often.
Trend, outstanding putback dunk late... otherwise, eh.
Burke... played hard...O is awful.
DJ, Jerel, looked bored.
Wes played great... surprised he only had 1 rb
lots of guys in an out.
their team... played hard all over... just out talented.... missed a lot of shots.

we missed a bunch o' dinks and basically all ft's in first half-- nasty.

oozer was asleep and crean seemed to call him out on it.

we have 1 coach of some sort for every 2 players!  amazed at all the suits on the bench.

dwayne streator's gained weight.

Chad the camera guy under the south basket got pummeled.


good thing only a warmup game.

[mu_hilltopper]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about the intro music switch.  No more Streets/No Name!??!    NO GOOD.   How long have we had that?  Gotta be 5+ years.  It just felt odd, like they were doing some Kayne West song before they were going to bust out U2.  Nope. 

[Thomas' Danish Delight]

My personal breakdown for anyone that cares:

Fitz:  Nice aggressive drive to the basket in the beginning of the game...but that's all I remember him doing all game

Burke:  Like y'all been saying...atrocious offensive game, but very good defensively.  5 steals dude...nice...but then again this is some northern state team

DJ:  What I loved most about him in this game is that he made 6/8 FTs, huge improvement.  Also, as someone already said, he and the whole team made the extra pass.  No more of that jacking up 3s all over the place.  We were only 3/16 for 3 pointers, though?  I didn't even realize we shot that many.  And oh, was it Acker to DJ for that alley oop?  i thought that was gonna be the highlight

Lazar:  Nice to see the guy getting aggressive

Acker:  Wow...guy's a baller.  Then again...northern state with a team full of "white boys".  I'm not sayin' nothin'...this white dude behind me was on the phone saying how in the first 15 minutes, "we were getting beat by a buncha white boys".  But yeah, Acker, tenacious defender, he stripped the ball away from this kid like it was nothin...and then later northern state threw an outlet pass to some guy, and then Mo' comes right up in the guy's face...bamf

Blackledge/Hazel:  these two shined on defense during one particular nsu possession towards the end of the game, got aggressive down low.  Hazel looked a bit hesitant though.  And oh yeah...Trend's put back dunk...wowzers. 

Ouse:  Biggest disappointment of the night.  He and Burke and at one time, EVERYONE, were missing point blank lay ups...NSU had some nice swats on the likes of DJ and McNeal

Other than that...I think the new uniforms are frickin sweet.  We started off horrendously, but we looked better by the second half.  Hopefully Ouse and Fitz will have bigger games

[SoCalstu09]

and...Freeway was in the house! 

At one point in the first half he was next to the student section dancing at a timeout and then less than 10 minutes later he was on the other side of the student section dancing again. That man has moves.

He got a standing ovation from the students. Probably the loudest cheering of the night.

[Desert_Eagle]

Some thoughts....

I'm not too worried about being out rebounded as we had some odd lineups at times--Acker, James, and Christopherson.  What is that?  An average height of 5'10". 

Trend had a tremendous putback dunk...highlight of the night.  He didn't play much---seemed very timid. 

Hazel looked lost...Trend dunk was actually over Hazel.

Offense is much like last year.  Not even looking to set up a half court set.  Run and gun and Run and Run...

James was cramping up again!!!  However, he had some sick passes when he was in...no arm sleeve!!!  Looked like his head is on straight..unlike--

New intro music--no more U2 "where the streets have no name"  instead Kayne West's new single...nice change...

The Jersey looked great...a little busy but the shorts, jerseys, warmups etc really look nice...

Crowd was OK but who cares---we'll show up when the games matter....great to be back at the BC...chills everytime!!

Looking forward to the season!!!

Ha, I noticed that DJ wasn't wearing his sleeve either! or his tights for that matter. I thought that maybe he was done with his cramping problems until the second half when he was bent over grabbing his leg.

Also, very disappointed in the music change. 'Streets have no name' just gets you more pumped up and is much better for chanting "we are marquette" over.

[mu_hilltopper]

Also, very disappointed in the music change. 'Streets have no name' just gets you more pumped up and is much better for chanting "we are marquette" over.

COSIGN!  I realize the new song may be a team favorite .. but a large part of the crowd is trained to Streets. .. And it's not like U2 is some old fuddy-duddy band.  I assume they have a following with the younger generation as well.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

didn't they have something different in the pre-season last year and then switch to "streets" for regular season?

If I were betting... I would bet that is what is going on.

[Big Papi]

I personally like Streets have no Name as I love how the song builds up but I recall there being posters complaining last year that they were sick of hearing the same song and wanted it changed. I gues you can't please everyone.

If the Kanye West song is "Stronger" that could be a cool intro especially if it pumps up the team and the student section which I think it would.  Those are the two biggest components when it comes to atmosphere and being pumped up.  The fuddy duddys are never going to get very pumped up.  So without actually hearing the intro, if the student section responded, I give it two thumbs up.

[🏀]

I guess nobody would be up for Carmina Burana's "O Fortuna"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xCB6-h3wbs

[Ready2Fly]

I agree on Streets - I'm not the biggest U2 fan by any stretch of the imagination but the association I have with that song is so overwhelmingly positive and it gives me chills every time I hear it at the Bradley Center.  I would hate for it to go.

[TallTitan34]

It's true.  No matter where I am when I hear that song I immediately think of Marquette basketball.

[mu03eng]

I agree on Streets - I'm not the biggest U2 fan by any stretch of the imagination but the association I have with that song is so overwhelmingly positive and it gives me chills every time I hear it at the Bradley Center.  I would hate for it to go.

Couldn't agree more.  I have it as my ring tone, and I don't think anything reminds me of my friends and college years more than this song. 

I guess things change, but I would like them to use that song for at least another 30 years

[jtate15]

I heard that a lot of people went to a concert on campus which possibly lowered the attendance as well.  LAME!  I'd expect a much bigger turnout for Saturday's game.

only about 150 people were at the concert last night. so that wasn't the reason.

[TallTitan34]

I heard that a lot of people went to a concert on campus which possibly lowered the attendance as well.  LAME!  I'd expect a much bigger turnout for Saturday's game.

only about 150 people were at the concert last night. so that wasn't the reason.

There will still be a larger student turnout for the next game.  It will be a Saturday night with no school the next day, plus this game counts.  I'd assume the crowd reaches one or two rows into the upper deck.

[MUfan12]

They basically recycled the video they used at Madness, and usually the new video isn't debuted until the first regular season game. Streets will be back on Saturday.

Crowd was about what I expected on a Sunday night.

I also disagree that Hazel looked lost. I watched him pretty closely, and he plays pretty solid defense, much more sound positioning than Barro or Burke. He just needs to learn when to deny the ball, and whether to front his guy or not. His footwork offensively looked good on the post move where he couldn't finish the baby hook. He seems to have a pretty good basketball IQ.

[farmdaddy]

I agree on Streets - I'm not the biggest U2 fan by any stretch of the imagination but the association I have with that song is so overwhelmingly positive and it gives me chills every time I hear it at the Bradley Center.  I would hate for it to go.

Every time I hear the opening on the radio, my mind flashes back to MU Basketball games.