Wring out the Hoyas

[MuMark]

Incredible picky nitpick here ...

I am thrilled that Markus made those early 3-pointers, helped set the tone of the game. But had he missed them, I would have said: "Man, those were awfully early in the shot clock and came before we passed the ball at all."

In general, I love our 3s that come on ball movement and in transition, and I hate our 3s that come on one or fewer passes.

They did work out for Markus in this game, so all's good.

After watching Markus play for 12 games now I'm pretty ok with him taking any open 3 point shot unless he has missed 3 or 4 in a row......and I doubt that has ever happened....

I mean he is shooting 54% from 3....that is pretty effective offense.

[MUBigDance]

That was Haanif.  He was running down the middle of the court and *just happened* to get in the way of the pursuing Pryor, who saw Haanif and gave him a shoulder nudge.  When GT immediately took the TO, Haanif ran over to JJ, while Pryor *conveniently* happened to be right in his path to JJ and Haanif started yelling right in front of Pryor.  Good stuff.

My mistake, memory issues...Hanif. But he did play a role in blocking pryors path and with intention...and clean. Pryor was frustrated for sure.

[Marcus92]

After watching Markus play for 12 games now I'm pretty ok with him taking any open 3 point shot unless he has missed 3 or 4 in a row......and I doubt that has ever happened....

I mean he is shooting 54% from 3....that is pretty effective offense.

Agreed. I'm happy to admit that Markus and Sam have already far exceeded my rather modest preseason expectations for them.

It's still early. But Sam is arguably having a bigger impact in his first year with MU than either Lazar Hayward or Jimmy Butler. Markus has a chance to break Steve Novak's freshman record for 3-point FG percentage (50.5%) and Travis Diener's freshman record for 3-pointers made (57). He should shatter Damon Key's freshman record for FT% (81.6%). Both are strong contenders for the Big East all-freshman team.

Either one has the green light in my book. We could be seeing two stars in the making.

[BallBoy]

Right now KenPom predicts we'll finish 19-11, 10-8 in conference (5th in the Big East). That should be a tournament-worthy resume.

You're right — even sweeping DePaul and St. John's is not automatic. But we've only lost to one team ranked below us so far: Pittsburgh. And they're a lot better than either the Blue Demons or the Johnnies. I think 4-0 is the expectation. With the win against Georgetown, we're up to 5.

We're strongly favored at home against Providence (76% win probability) and Seton Hall (71%). Two wins is a pretty solid bet. If so, we're up to 7.

That's where things start to get dicey.

Four of our games are pick 'em propositions — as evenly matched as you can get. That includes home against Creighton (51%), Xavier (50%) and Butler (50%), and on the road against Providence (51%). Winning 1, 2 or 3 of those shouldn't surprise anyone. These are the games that could turn our season. Let's say we go 2-2 and we have 9 wins. Just need one more.

Two more games are almost as close: at Seton Hall (44%) and at Georgetown (45%). The rest, we're significant underdogs: at home against Nova (33%), and on the road against Creighton (26%), Xavier (25%), Butler (25%) and Nova (13%). If the odds are right, we should take at least one of those 7 games to get to 10 wins — possibly even 2 or 3, which would protect against an unexpected loss.

But if we lose one of our strongly favored matchups, or don't win our share of the pick 'em games, we could be in trouble. Let's see how we look facing Seton Hall twice in the next 2 weeks.

Yes with 17 games left there is a path.  As I said, MU needs to minimally win 10 and MU needs to have a couple of good wins.  Right now, MU is in the Last 4 In being forecasted as the 6th BE team.  The Last 4 In prior to the automatic bids is really the last 4 out so I wouldn't consider them a lock by any stretch.  Based on this the cut line is around 5/6.

That St John's team that is "horrible" destroyed Cuse and just beat Butler.  To mark them as a sweep is dicey.  I think Xavier, Creighton and Nova are a different class of the league.  Butler and SH are the next two.  If MU isn't Top 6 then we are out. 

[BM1090]

Yes with 17 games left there is a path.  As I said, MU needs to minimally win 10 and MU needs to have a couple of good wins.  Right now, MU is in the Last 4 In being forecasted as the 6th BE team.  The Last 4 In prior to the automatic bids is really the last 4 out so I wouldn't consider them a lock by any stretch.  Based on this the cut line is around 5/6.

That St John's team that is "horrible" destroyed Cuse and just beat Butler.  To mark them as a sweep is dicey.  I think Xavier, Creighton and Nova are a different class of the league.  Butler and SH are the next two.  If MU isn't Top 6 then we are out.

I agree with pretty much everything you said here, but Syracuse sucks at this point.

[Jay Bee]

St John's is a bad team and extremely young, but they can shoot & score at times. If they shoot 67.6% 2FG% against us like they did Butler, there could be a problem.

Butler has struggled this year with 2FG% def

When St John's shoots 52.6% or better eFG%, they win. 7-0

When they shooter 50.9% or lower, they lose. 0-7

eFG% reigns supreme. So, a young team with guys that can shoot well at times are dangerous & almost always have a chance.

[Juan Anderson's Mixtape]

Markus has a chance to break Steve Novak's freshman record for 3-point FG percentage (50.5%) and Travis Diener's freshman record for 3-pointers made (57).

Sam and Markus could both pass Diener.  I believe Sam has the early lead.  Sam would need to heat back up to make a run at Novak's 50.5% record.

[brandx]

After watching Markus play for 12 games now I'm pretty ok with him taking any open 3 point shot unless he has missed 3 or 4 in a row......and I doubt that has ever happened....

I mean he is shooting 54% from 3....that is pretty effective offense.

The entire point of running an offense is to get good shots. Wide open 3s by Markus (or Sam) are good shots - whether it is 5 seconds or 28 seconds into the shot clock.