[Cracked Sidewalks] Marquette is still young, and still maddeningly inconsistent

[CrackedSidewalks]

Marquette is still young, and still maddeningly inconsistent

Marquette had a week off so we decided to take advantage and really process the Creighton and Providence game. That's mostly an excuse for our laziness, but we are going to talk a lot about the Creighton and Providence games. One of the first things we talk about is Coach Wojchiekowski's post game presser after Creighton, you can listen here:     So after listening to Wojo we're wondering, has he lost this team? How does a team just not run a play at all that a coach draws up? Is this just more youth showing? We then talk, yet again, about youthful mistakes the team is making, but point out that the total mistakes (TOs) are going down, they are just being made at very inopportune times. We then talk about the last 5 games of the season and focus on the next 3 especially. Bottom line, DON'T LOSE TO DEPAUL AGAIN! And we need to win at least one or two more to make the NIT. We wrap up with some talk about recruiting as well as Steve Novak, who has taken one elite skill and turned it into a 10 year, $20 mil career. Enjoy, and don't lose to DePaul!     Download this episode (right click and save)

Source: Marquette is still young, and still maddeningly inconsistent

[tower912]

This has been obvious for some time.    Some have just been deniers or refused to recognize what that entails. 

[Stretchdeltsig]

It's been a long season, starting with the Italy games.  You would think this team would be well molded into Wojo's unit by now.  Look at the rodents, how they progress from the start of each year into a highly competitive team.  It seems that their coaching is superior to ours.  We don't improve individually or as a team as the year goes on.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

It's been a long season, starting with the Italy games.  You would think this team would be well molded into Wojo's unit by now.  Look at the rodents, how they progress from the start of each year into a highly competitive team.  It seems that their coaching is superior to ours.  We don't improve individually or as a team as the year goes on.

Except we have improved individually and as a unit. The team playing today would kick the collective arse of the team that lost to Belmont and got taken to overtime by iupui

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

This has been obvious for some time.    Some have just been deniers or refused to recognize what that entails. 

There has been improvement both against the early season and through the BEast season.  I think the pace of improvement is what some are dissatisfied with.  There is still time for them to continue to tighten things up and end the season on a high note.  All hinges on making a little run here to solidify the NIT bid.

[mu03eng]

There has been improvement both against the early season and through the BEast season.  I think the pace of improvement is what some are dissatisfied with.  There is still time for them to continue to tighten things up and end the season on a high note.  All hinges on making a little run here to solidify the NIT bid.

I agree, and this is also a case of growth being compared to oversized expectations. I hold myself as one of the folks that set this team up to grow leaps and bounds over the season partially out of hope and ignorance. So we set up a false expectation that, if we're being honest, was ridiculous to begin with. To expect 3 freshmen to play over 50% of our minutes and be in a position to be in the NCAA at the end of the season is just not realistic.

So they've grown a lot(look at the TOs the last couple of games) but they just haven't grown enough for oversized expectations.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

I agree, and this is also a case of growth being compared to oversized expectations. I hold myself as one of the folks that set this team up to grow leaps and bounds over the season partially out of hope and ignorance. So we set up a false expectation that, if we're being honest, was ridiculous to begin with. To expect 3 freshmen to play over 50% of our minutes and be in a position to be in the NCAA at the end of the season is just not realistic.

So they've grown a lot(look at the TOs the last couple of games) but they just haven't grown enough for oversized expectations.

The TOs the last couple of games are the most encouraging to me -- they are now containing them to blocks of time as opposed to a constant drum-beat throughout the game.  We have even had really good half's for this metric.

My personal expectations were - solidly in the NIT and mentioned in the bubble discussion.  I checked that pre-season thread when I reached the peak of exasperation earlier in the BE season.  So - we still have some work to do -- but can still get a passing grade from me (as if that matters).

[bilsu]

There has been improvement both against the early season and through the BEast season.  I think the pace of improvement is what some are dissatisfied with.  There is still time for them to continue to tighten things up and end the season on a high note.  All hinges on making a little run here to solidify the NIT bid.

They have improved a lot, but so have other teams. Most teams on February 18th would run what their team was the first game of the season off the court, We lost to Belmont. I am sure Belmont has improved. I hope we have improved more than Belmont. I believe we would beat Belmont, if we played them now, but I could be wrong. I predicted many times early on that we would win the Big East tournament. The closer we get the less confident I am. Part of it is that we will almost for sure have to play Villanova or Xavier in the second game.

[ChicosBailBonds]

It's been a long season, starting with the Italy games.  You would think this team would be well molded into Wojo's unit by now.  Look at the rodents, how they progress from the start of each year into a highly competitive team.  It seems that their coaching is superior to ours.  We don't improve individually or as a team as the year goes on.

Really?

You think the team as constructed mid February is not better than the team that struggled to beat IUPUI and lost to Belmont?  You really believe this?

[brewcity77]

I was one that had higher expectations for this team. I thought they could sneak into the NCAAs because I believed they would be peaking now. To their credit, they probably are, but they simply are still too young. The combination of surprisingly good non-con results (after the 1-2 start) had me really thinking they could contend for a berth.

My biggest worry all along was the non-con schedule and the need for 23 wins. Just too much for a team this young to accomplish, I guess. Still, what I like about this team is that just about every night, they show indications they could beat anyone in the league. We had a halftime lead at 'Nova, played close to Xavier twice, and have some decent wins against PC and Butler. We're definitely better, and we're not a bad team. We're just not as good as I hoped we would be at this point.

Even still, I'm generally happy with the results, and really hope we end up playing postseason basketball, whether in Vegas, the NIT, or the shock 4-day run to the NCAAs.