Children, calm down.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Looking only at your pregame expectation and final score masks a lot of important details about how a game went down. We're noticing a trend in Marquette's ability (or lack thereof) to withstand the opponents 2nd half runs that would not be recognizable if only looking at the final score.

Im personally a fan of the concept of breaking a game up into the chunks of time between timeouts. The ability to rattle off consecutive winning chunks of time, or prevent the opponent from doing so, is a factor in a team's long term success.

Since you were curious.

First Half:
U16: UW 12, MU 9
U12: UW 3, MU 7
U8: UW 12, MU 9
U4: UW 6, MU 9
Half: UW 2, MU 5

2nd Half:
U16: UW 8, MU 4
U12: UW 13, MU 3
U8: UW 11, MU 3
U4: UW 9, MU 12
Final: UW 17, MU 22

UW won 5 timeouts, MU won 5 timeouts. UW won their's by 9 more. If you want to dissect how we lost, that's great. No issue with that. I like breaking up the game too.

That wasn't my point.

My point is that a 9 point loss is a 9 point loss, no matter how you get there. It is not worse to build a lead than lose it, than it is to build a deficit and then fail to come all the way back. It's not better if its neck and neck all game with one side pulling away at the end. A 9 point loss is a 9 point loss. Breaking it down can help diagnose what went wrong, but there isn't a better way to lose.

[Lennys Tap]

Why does this matter? All that matters is the final score. If you told me we were going to lose by single digits against Wisconsin I would have been pleasantly surprised. Not happy about it of course. But preseason I expected a blow out.

You keep (ad nauseam) repeating your mantra of this being "a single digit loss" as if this was a close game. It wasn't. We won garbage time because they were disinterested on defense and stalling (and missing some free throws) on offense. Even with that we needed to throw in a meaningless 3 in the final seconds to get to what I guess you consider the all important "single digit" margin. Sorry, this was a blowout. if you just see the final on a scroll you might not think so, but if you watched the game you know so.

[79Warrior]

And we were the better team in the first half. Put the two halves together and you have a single digit loss.

Considering Happ was on the bench most of the first half I would not take much comfort in the halftime score. We sucked in the second half and got hammered at home.

[g0lden3agle]

Since you were curious.

First Half:
U16: UW 12, MU 9
U12: UW 3, MU 7
U8: UW 12, MU 9
U4: UW 6, MU 9
Half: UW 2, MU 5

2nd Half:
U16: UW 8, MU 4
U12: UW 13, MU 3
U8: UW 11, MU 3
U4: UW 9, MU 12
Final: UW 17, MU 22

UW won 5 timeouts, MU won 5 timeouts. UW won their's by 9 more. If you want to dissect how we lost, that's great. No issue with that. I like breaking up the game too.

That wasn't my point.

My point is that a 9 point loss is a 9 point loss, no matter how you get there. It is not worse to build a lead than lose it, than it is to build a deficit and then fail to come all the way back. It's not better if its neck and neck all game with one side pulling away at the end. A 9 point loss is a 9 point loss. Breaking it down can help diagnose what went wrong, but there isn't a better way to lose.

Thank you for breaking down the segments and the results like that. I was planning on doing so when I woke up this morning  .

I agree with Lenny in regards to the merit in calling this a single digit loss. What i see is a Wisconsin team that came out and knocked out MU by dominating three straight segments of the 2nd half and being able to take the foot off the gas.

MUs tendency to allow massive runs like this is very troubling.

[4everwarriors]

Major ass kickin' while we were takin' to da woodshed. Da younguns just aren't connoisseurs of fine Warrior basketball, ai na?

[Goose]

4ever
We were out of it halftime. Only up 5 with Happ on the pines for 18 minutes was not good enough. Long, long, long way to go for the program at this point.

[Class71]

With the way Wojo teaches "defense," MU has no chance against a good team unless they hit a huge number of 3's.

Talent is bad, coaching is worse...

Sky is falling, sky is falling. Let's see in two months if you feel the same way. To expect us to beat the rodents this early in the season is unrealistic. If we finish in the top 30-40 this will be a successful season. We need to be a bit realistic.

[fjm]

Sky is falling, sky is falling. Let's see in two months if you feel the same way. To expect us to beat the rodents this early in the season is unrealistic. If we finish in the top 30-40 this will be a successful season. We need to be a bit realistic.

Couldn't agree more. Everyone freaks out. We have 3 losses. So many people here thought we would have 4 or 5 by now. We have lost to quality opponents. And anyone who thinks Madison ISNT a top 10 team is drunk. They have lost two games. To UNC and Creighton.

We have lost 3 games... 3.
To good teams.

Actually we should shut the program down and move to D3.

[bilsu]

Considering Happ was on the bench most of the first half I would not take much comfort in the halftime score. We sucked in the second half and got hammered at home.

We also down 5 or 7 when Reinhardt came off the bench and hit four threes, which is not likely to happen again. The game was actually lossed in the frist half when we did not take greater advantage of Happ being on the bench.

[4everwarriors]

We did take advantage of Happ's pine time. But, dat's all da juice dis team's got. Needed ta be up big league at da break. Woefully short on talent and da upperclassmen have not improved or taken da next step, ai na?

[79Warrior]

Couldn't agree more. Everyone freaks out. We have 3 losses. So many people here thought we would have 4 or 5 by now. We have lost to quality opponents. And anyone who thinks Madison ISNT a top 10 team is drunk. They have lost two games. To UNC and Creighton.

We have lost 3 games... 3.
To good teams.

Actually we should shut the program down and move to D3.

Sorry if reality is freaking out. This team cannot defend and if you cannot defend then it will be a long season. We have one quality win, Georgia. UCLA lit up Michigan yesterday and Michigan made us look like a division 2 team. The loss to UW does not bother me, they are the better team. The lack of improvement defensively by Marquette troubles me.

[fjm]

Sorry if reality is freaking out. This team cannot defend and if you cannot defend then it will be a long season. We have one quality win, Georgia. UCLA lit up Michigan yesterday and Michigan made us look like a division 2 team. The loss to UW does not bother me, they are the better team. The lack of improvement defensively by Marquette troubles me.

While agree on the defense issue, I can't agree on the UCLA issue. UCLA is no2 in the country.

Everyone is freaking out, yet no one is considering rankings or other teams capabilities.

Yes Georgia was a good win and so far our best. Hope to see many more this season.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

You keep (ad nauseam) repeating your mantra of this being "a single digit loss" as if this was a close game. It wasn't. We won garbage time because they were disinterested on defense and stalling (and missing some free throws) on offense. Even with that we needed to throw in a meaningless 3 in the final seconds to get to what I guess you consider the all important "single digit" margin. Sorry, this was a blowout. if you just see the final on a scroll you might not think so, but if you watched the game you know so.

See I didn't see the same thing you did. We were within 8 with over 3 minutes to go. That's plenty of time to make up that deficit. That technical foul gets called on Wisconsin and that's anywhere from a 2 to 6 point swing. I saw us beat Wisconsin in the first half. Get real down early in the the second. Than I saw us battle back to make it a game. You bring up the meaningless three. I can just as easily say that Marquette could have let the game go when we were down 8 with 36 seconds left. Wisconsin hit some meaningless free throws to extend their lead. This was a single digit loss. It sucks. But giving up a first half lead isn't any worse than Wisconsin creaming us in the first half and us battling back to a single digit loss. Or Wisconsin just being slightly better than us all game and slowly pulling away to a 9 point win.

[MUBurrow]

See I didn't see the same thing you did. We were within 8 with over 3 minutes to go. That's plenty of time to make up that deficit. That technical foul gets called on Wisconsin and that's anywhere from a 2 to 6 point swing. I saw us beat Wisconsin in the first half. Get real down early in the the second. Than I saw us battle back to make it a game. You bring up the meaningless three. I can just as easily say that Marquette could have let the game go when we were down 8 with 36 seconds left. Wisconsin hit some meaningless free throws to extend their lead. This was a single digit loss. It sucks. But giving up a first half lead isn't any worse than Wisconsin creaming us in the first half and us battling back to a single digit loss. Or Wisconsin just being slightly better than us all game and slowly pulling away to a 9 point win.

I'm kind of with Lenny inasmuch as I don't think we can take much away from the final score or last 8 or so minutes of the game. The late lineup was almost exclusively Howard, Rowsey, Reinhardt, Cheatham and Hauser. You cannot win a significant number of meaningful games with that lineup. Sure you'll get up and run and can score in bunches, but that lineup will make a game look closer than it is. You play that lineup (or, I would argue, even one where you bring in Fischer for Hauser in that lineup) for more than 5 or so minutes a game, and any moderately balanced team will take you apart. 

I'm not claiming the sky is falling, either. But I don't think there were any meaningful takeaways over the final 1/4 yesterday.