Way too early 2018-2019 expectations...

[cheese ball chaser]

How frequently do teams jump from NIT to top NCAA seeds in a year? As excited and optimistic as I am for next year, I think there will be an adjustment period early on and that MU will improve as the year goes on. Given all the talent leaving the BE, MU should, in theory, be poised for a top half finish. I'll say 11-7 in conference play should be the minimum expectation.

[5DollarPitcher]

How are any of those coaches an improvement over Wojo. Did they lose to Villanova 3 times and Xavier twice?

How did those teams do in the rugged Big East?

We started over after Buzz and the cupboard was absolutely dry, we should ditch Wojo because why?

Ha, kinda unfair to judge a mid-major coach on how they fared against teams they literally cannot schedule.

These coaches dominated their conferences and showed up in the NCAA Tourney big time.  They made their teams more than the sum of their parts, and they recruited good players to come to Whositwhatsit University.

Whether he would accept or not, if you offered Danny Hurley to Scoop right now I guarantee you 80% would take him in a heartbeat, even the Wojo Kool-Aiders.

[BM1090]

Anyone whose expectations are centered around our performance in the NCAA tournament is dumb. If we finish 13-5 in conference, 2nd in the Big East, and get upset in the first round of the tournament...that is a FAR more successful year than going 9-9, sneaking in and making a run to the Sweet 16

[tower912]

Ok, but if he wins 20 +/- 1 games for the next 4 years, is he still safe in your eyes, or would you mock anyone that thinks he should go?

Keep moving  those goalposts.  Every season is different.

This year MU was 21-8 against non 1-2 seeds.   With 3 freshmen, 4 sophomores,  3 guys playing the same position who couldn't be played at the same time, 2 tiny guards as the leading scorers, one player who played all year on a bad hip, another with a brace on his thumb all year.   Taken in a vacuum, that is a helluva coaching job.
 
If you want to blame Wojo for roster make up, go ahead.  But the actual coaching  of the actual roster was solid.

Playing rotations.... who should have played more?   It isn't like more can reasonably be expected from 3 star freshmen. 

Defense:   frustrating.   I watch other team's running the same stuff as Marquette.  But without 5'10 guards defending 6'5 guards.  Don't play them together!  Squeeze more out of the injured 3 star freshman.  Or the skinny one with bad hands.   But it is a good thing that the 6'5 junior guard left.   

Take Marquette off the jersey and look at it objectively.   Wojo squeezed everything he could have out of this roster.

[MomofMUltiples]

Great Ploy, Pitcher.  Start a new thread under the guise of asking for information and then argue with everyone who disagrees with you.  Hmm, are you perhaps one of our more infamous posters who regularly sneak back with new identities? Or perhaps you strongly believe Wojo has to go and MU can easily get rid of him without disruption and rebuilding time that seems to come with coaching shakeups (see, for example: Buzz, 2013.  Pitt, 2018.).  Or maybe you're just disagreeable.  At any rate, I've had my fill of Fire Wojo threads.  Plenty of places here already to rag on him without starting a new one.

[Boozemon Barro]

Keep moving  those goalposts.  Every season is different.

"Firing a coach who has just come off 20, 19, and 21 win seasons.   Brilliant."

It was you who said that, not me. You're the one moving the goalposts.

[5DollarPitcher]

Great Ploy, Pitcher.  Start a new thread under the guise of asking for information and then argue with everyone who disagrees with you.  Hmm, are you perhaps one of our more infamous posters who regularly sneak back with new identities? Or perhaps you strongly believe Wojo has to go and MU can easily get rid of him without disruption and rebuilding time that seems to come with coaching shakeups (see, for example: Buzz, 2013.  Pitt, 2018.).  Or maybe you're just disagreeable.  At any rate, I've had my fill of Fire Wojo threads.  Plenty of places here already to rag on him without starting a new one.

I'm not a multiple account guy, so we can start there.  But, as I've said before, I started the thread to (for lack of a more gentle phrase) back Wojo supporters into a corner - "What will it take for you to continue to support Wojo next year".  That way, regardless of what happens next year (barring major injuries, sure), we will have clear benchmarks to judge him against so we can finally put a stop to all the excuses once and for all.

But, Wojo supporters have mostly given themselves a way out by not quantifying their expectations or leaving caveats in their expectations.  This way, when we're a bubble team again next year, Scoop will excuse Wojo, Wojo will use these excuses in his presser ("WE'RE YOUNG!"), and we'll be back here again next year.

Quantify some challenging expectations or else you are acknowledging that you really wouldn't bet on Wojo taking that step.  It's that simple.

[GGGG]

I'm not a multiple account guy, so we can start there.  But, as I've said before, I started the thread to (for lack of a more gentle phrase) back Wojo supporters into a corner - "What will it take for you to continue to support Wojo next year".  That way, regardless of what happens next year (barring major injuries, sure), we will have clear benchmarks to judge him against so we can finally put a stop to all the excuses once and for all.

But, Wojo supporters have mostly given themselves a way out by not quantifying their expectations or leaving caveats in their expectations.  This way, when we're a bubble team again next year, Scoop will excuse Wojo, Wojo will use these excuses in his presser ("WE'RE YOUNG!"), and we'll be back here again next year.

Quantify some challenging expectations or else you are acknowledging that you really wouldn't bet on Wojo taking that step.  It's that simple.

I've stated it before.  I've put it in my sig.  You aren't really putting anyone in a corner.

[Silkk the Shaka]

Dan Hurley, Eric Musselman, and Nate Oats are all coaches that we could have had a chance at if we were being proactive.  All of whom I'm CONVINCED are lightyears better head coaches than Wojo.

As for convincing them to come here?  Salary, arena, Chicago pipeline, salary, attendance, Big East, salary?

This is really not that hard.  I also believe MU could have had a better COACH upon Wojo's original hiring, but his and the athletics department's sole objective at that time was to clean up the program so that we could exist in the Catholic 10 alongside Cooley and Wright.  Because, let's face it, Buzz was could coach a basketball team, but he was going to stick out in the C10 like a pig in Church.

URI, Nevada, and Buff cannot touch us in any of those areas.

I want no part of Dan Hurley, the guy irritates me to no end. And it took him until... year 5 to even make the tourney with Rhode Island (as an 11 seed), then round 2 bounced this year with a team full of seniors. No thanks!

I like Musselman too, but I expect we'll see Wojo and him have a similar level of success over time (if he doesn't find his way back to the NBA), and he's a west coast guy that has bounced around a ton so where's the long term fit from his perspective or ours?

Oats is a solid coach, I like the way his team plays, very junkyard dog Buzz-like. But he was an effing high school coach for a decade and an assistant at UB for a couple years. You would have been sh!tting yourself with anger had we hired him in 2014. Plus, a lot of the best players on that team he inherited from Hurley. I'd like to see how he does if/when he takes a step up in competition.

My guess is you will look at this post in a few years and laugh at wanting any of these guys over Wojo.

[SaveOD238]

But, Wojo supporters have mostly given themselves a way out by not quantifying their expectations or leaving caveats in their expectations. 

Caveats and qualifications are actually signs of better "thinking" than statements are are inflexible and definitive.  I'm grading AP History papers right now (or I should be) and the "Complex Understanding" section of the rubric gives kids credit for "Explaining nuance by analyzing multiple variables" or "Qualifying or modifying an argument by considering alternatives views/evidence."  If high school kids can be expected to be flexible and understand that situations change, then so should you. 

I'd really like to win 25 games and go to the Sweet Sixteen, but if half the team break their legs or someone gets cancer or the rest of the Big East isn't as down as we're thinking so we just barely scrape into the dance at 19-11, I'm not calling for Wojo's head because we didn't win 20 games or didn't get a 7 seed or higher or didn't finish top 3 in the conference.  That kind of thinking is just asinine.

Let's remember, of course, that "only the Sith deal in absolutes"

[GGGG]

If Wojo goes for whatever reason, TJ Otzelberger should be one of the top choices for consideration.

[Babybluejeans]

I'm not a multiple account guy, so we can start there.  But, as I've said before, I started the thread to (for lack of a more gentle phrase) back Wojo supporters into a corner - "What will it take for you to continue to support Wojo next year".  That way, regardless of what happens next year (barring major injuries, sure), we will have clear benchmarks to judge him against so we can finally put a stop to all the excuses once and for all.

But, Wojo supporters have mostly given themselves a way out by not quantifying their expectations or leaving caveats in their expectations.  This way, when we're a bubble team again next year, Scoop will excuse Wojo, Wojo will use these excuses in his presser ("WE'RE YOUNG!"), and we'll be back here again next year.

Why do you assume that it's binary? Some of us are skeptical MU fans cautiously hoping that Wojo takes the program to great heights, and are willing to give him a bit of runway to do so. We're not defending him irrationally (though some do) nor do we want to throw the whole thing out without seeing what he does with a strong returning team (though some do).

What's unimpeachable is this: there's a lot of talent on the current team and a lot of talent coming. Wanting to see what Wojo can do with that, rather than dumping the whole thing out the window, doesn't make someone a Wojo supporter - it makes us MU basketball fans.

Metrics, you say? How about make the tournament and look like a team that's progressed while doing so.

[5DollarPitcher]

Caveats and qualifications are actually signs of better "thinking" than statements are are inflexible and definitive.  I'm grading AP History papers right now (or I should be) and the "Complex Understanding" section of the rubric gives kids credit for "Explaining nuance by analyzing multiple variables" or "Qualifying or modifying an argument by considering alternatives views/evidence."  If high school kids can be expected to be flexible and understand that situations change, then so should you. 

I'd really like to win 25 games and go to the Sweet Sixteen, but if half the team break their legs or someone gets cancer or the rest of the Big East isn't as down as we're thinking so we just barely scrape into the dance at 19-11, I'm not calling for Wojo's head because we didn't win 20 games or didn't get a 7 seed or higher or didn't finish top 3 in the conference.  That kind of thinking is just asinine.

Let's remember, of course, that "only the Sith deal in absolutes"

But the thing is, any excuse generated (besides injury which I acknowledged before your post here) will have been created by Wojo himself through his tenure at the program.

>Rest of BE isn't down --> we shouldn't need the BE to be down to be a competitive team
>Young --> he's been constructing the roster for 5 years
>No PG --> he's been constructing the roster for 5 years
>Defense doesn't take the leap --> he's the head coach

Besides injury, there should not be any room for caveats or excuses - regardless of how stupid your APUSH rubric thinks I am.

[tower912]

APUSH?   

In a vacuum, with the make up of this year's roster, playing in a high level conference, what should the record have been?

[5DollarPitcher]

APUSH?   

In a vacuum, with the make up of this year's roster, playing in a high level conference, what should the record have been?

AP US History

And, I believe this roster could have accomplished what Providence did this year.  I think we have a similar talent level and similar amount of "holes", but Cooley made them, as I've said before, more than the sum of their parts.

[Silkk the Shaka]

APUSH?   

In a vacuum, with the make up of this year's roster, playing in a high level conference, what should the record have been?

I think if we had played in the Big10 or Pac12 with this exact roster we'd have won 24+

[tower912]

Providence, regular season, 19-12, 10-8.
Marquette, regular season, 18-12, 9-9.

Providence, final record, 21-14
Marquette, final record, 21-14.

[Windyplayer]

Wojo's entire tenure has been a disappointment.  Aside from a couple recruiting wins and the Nova upset, this has been the most luke-warm 4+ years in MUBB recent memory.  We, as fans and alumni, should really start putting pressure on the program to materialize the plan like now-ish.

Eh, cupboard was bare coming in and got to the tourney in his third season and flirted with another berth this year - now he's going to have the personnel to make some noise over the next few years and hopefully beyond. Let's hope the first four years proved to be fertile learning ground and he takes off moving forward.

[KampusFoods]

If Wojo goes for whatever reason, TJ Otzelberger should be one of the top choices for consideration.

Agree here. Lots of WI ties. Thought he deserved a crack at the Marquette West job when Hoiberg left.

[KampusFoods]

Eh, cupboard was bear coming in and got to the tourney in his third season and flirted with another berth this year - now he's going to have the personnel to make some noise over the next few years and hopefully beyond. Let's hope the first four years proved to be fertile learning ground and he takes off moving forward.

Drink!

[Windyplayer]

Drink!

Ha, I know. The cliche got me.

[5DollarPitcher]

Providence, regular season, 19-12, 10-8.
Marquette, regular season, 18-12, 9-9.

Providence, final record, 21-14
Marquette, final record, 21-14.

Let's exclude post-season tournaments for obvious reasons (NIT vs NCAAs - huge difference)

19-13 versus 21-13 (with the run in the BET)

I don't think it's fair to say MU and Providence had the same amount of success this season and the selection committee would heartily agree with me.

[Pakuni]

How frequently do teams jump from NIT to top NCAA seeds in a year? As excited and optimistic as I am for next year, I think there will be an adjustment period early on and that MU will improve as the year goes on. Given all the talent leaving the BE, MU should, in theory, be poised for a top half finish. I'll say 11-7 in conference play should be the minimum expectation.

TCU won the NIT last year. Were a 6 seed this year.
Clemson went from the NIT last year to a 5 seed this year.
2018 tourney teams Houston, Syracuse, Alabama, Charleston and UNC-Greensboro also played in the NIT last year.

[MU82]

I want no part of Dan Hurley, the guy irritates me to no end. And it took him until... year 5 to even make the tourney with Rhode Island (as an 11 seed), then round 2 bounced this year with a team full of seniors. No thanks!

I like Musselman too, but I expect we'll see Wojo and him have a similar level of success over time (if he doesn't find his way back to the NBA), and he's a west coast guy that has bounced around a ton so where's the long term fit from his perspective or ours?

Oats is a solid coach, I like the way his team plays, very junkyard dog Buzz-like. But he was an effing high school coach for a decade and an assistant at UB for a couple years. You would have been sh!tting yourself with anger had we hired him in 2014. Plus, a lot of the best players on that team he inherited from Hurley. I'd like to see how he does if/when he takes a step up in competition.

My guess is you will look at this post in a few years and laugh at wanting any of these guys over Wojo.

Excellent post, EFR.

People always want the backup QB to play ... until he actually has to play.

5DP is CONVINCED that Hurley, Musselman and Oats not only are better but "light years" better. Not sure what "light years" means, but a light year is a lot, so I'll go with a minimum 50% better. So 5DP must be certain that any of them would have averaged 30 wins the last 3 seasons at Marquette.

5DP is another one who would have "seen enough" and fired Tony Bennett after 4 years at Va or Jay Wright after 3 at Nova or Coach K after 3 at Duke. He'll deny it, but I'm CONVINCED he'd be light years away from the truth.

And let's talk about The Great Dan Hurley, shall we?

He went 8-21, 14-18, 23-10 and 17-15 with 1 NIT win over Iona in his first 4 years at URI. If 5DP were a URI backer, I'm CONVINCED he would have "seen enough" of that coach and been calling for them to hire somebody "light years" better!

I'm also CONVINCED 5DP will be rooting for us to lose next season so he can scream "I told you so." Those types are easy to spot from light years away. More important for them to be "right" than anything else.

Wojo is an improving coach and he's got a chance to be a very good one. I can't sit here and say that I am 100% certain he will be a very good one, but I think he can be. I'm glad he's our coach. And I will be rooting for him (and us) to win. Not so I can say "I told you so" but because I'm a Warriors fan.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

I made this thread to hopefully get Scoop to put out expectations that, if not met, will result in boarding the fire Wojo train.

At least you're being honest about the douchey reason for the thread and the tacit hope that expectations aren't met.