Recruiting Needs?

[McLintock]

This is preposterous. You don't string together top-50 offenses by making it up as you go along. Wojo has plenty of failings, but he's done pretty well offensively.

Give the ball to Howard and get out of the way covers up a lot of warts.  I’ll credit extremely gifted offensive players such as Howard and Rowsey for any offensive efficiency there used to be given we now see what the offense looks like with them gone. One thing that remains with them gone is the poor defense, so hopefully we can agree this staff is unable to get a team to play consistent defense.

[muspc2]

I don't want to denigrate our present players, who hopefully give their all, but the team as a whole is simply not as good as MU fans would expect. Taking all his years as coach, WOJO simply has not proven himself a good enough recruiter to overcome his coaching shortcomings. Even 4* and 5* high school players deserve to be taught offensive and defensive basics. It would seem that for various real world reasons WOJO will be the coach next year. If WOJO somehow keeps the talented players on the team from transferring, and the promising class coming in shows up, he might have the talent to begin trying to out-talent opponents. He will still have to fill in with transfers who can compliment the young players. Then, maybe MU will show signs of being successful enough to have new talent finding MU attractive enough to be more than a "final five" in recruiting (with that having been based upon the assistants' personalities and persistence rather than the overall future of the team). It seems that all of this is necessary for a WOJO team to show any upper trajectory to indicate that he will have any higher success than he has had so far.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Give the ball to Howard and get out of the way covers up a lot of warts.  I’ll credit extremely gifted offensive players such as Howard and Rowsey for any offensive efficiency there used to be given we now see what the offense looks like with them gone. One thing that remains with them gone is the poor defense, so hopefully we can agree this staff is unable to get a team to play consistent defense.

You really don't understand what you are talking about.

[McLintock]

You really don't understand what you are talking about.

Facts:

MU average Kenpom adjusted offense (defense):
2008 to 2014: 33 (44)
2015 to 2021: 57 (101)

Average MU adjusted offensive without Howard under Wojo is 110. Wojo is a nice guy and seems to be a competent recruiter but the results don’t lie.

[Viper]

This is preposterous. You don't string together top-50 offenses by making it up as you go along. Wojo has plenty of failings, but he's done pretty well offensively.

Wojos offense...give it to Ellenson. Give it to Rowsey and Howard. Give it to Howard, maybe a Hauser. Give it to Howard. That’s it. Now? Garbage.

[brewcity77]

Wojos offense...give it to Ellenson. Give it to Rowsey and Howard. Give it to Howard, maybe a Hauser. Give it to Howard. That’s it. Now? Garbage.

Maybe you could get away with that in a low-major conference, but not in the Big East. Not against high-major defenses. Not against other competent coaches. Yes, the first two years were bad, but since then, his conference ranks are 2/3/2/2/4.

Wojo is fine at coaching offense. It's the defense and turnover disparities that kill us. And the idea that he's just rolling the ball out...sorry, but that's a complete misunderstanding of high-major basketball. Marquette's talent hasn't been good enough to just roll the ball out and get the results Wojo has gotten against the schedule he faces. Maybe if we were in the MVC or Horizon, but not in this league.

[pbiflyer]

There is some place between roll the ball out there and super genius.
All folks are saying is that Wojo is nothing special when it comes to coaching offense. We don’t even have an inbounds play other than throw it the length of the court and hope we get to it first.

The world’s not black and white.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Maybe you could get away with that in a low-major conference, but not in the Big East. Not against high-major defenses. Not against other competent coaches. Yes, the first two years were bad, but since then, his conference ranks are 2/3/2/2/4.

Wojo is fine at coaching offense. It's the defense and turnover disparities that kill us. And the idea that he's just rolling the ball out...sorry, but that's a complete misunderstanding of high-major basketball. Marquette's talent hasn't been good enough to just roll the ball out and get the results Wojo has gotten against the schedule he faces. Maybe if we were in the MVC or Horizon, but not in this league.

Yep, yep.

[brewcity77]

There is some place between roll the ball out there and super genius.
All folks are saying is that Wojo is nothing special when it comes to coaching offense. We don’t even have an inbounds play other than throw it the length of the court and hope we get to it first.

The world’s not black and white.

Wojo has benefited from recruiting players with outsized offensive ability such as Rowsey, Hauser, and Howard. I would not dispute that his offenses have likely been aided simply by good offensive recruiting. However even good players need direction and game-planning to succeed in a league like the Big East. I also think he has benefited from the assistants he hired. Nelson seemed to be excellent at coaching up shooters while Stan seems to have had acumen for planning inbounds plays.

Perhaps it will all fall apart with the departures of Markus and Stan, but this year we're still top-4 in the league and a respectable (not great) #64 nationally with the top-3 in terms of percent of shots taken being newcomers.

Agreed that it's not black and white, but I think it's fair to say that his defensive deficiencies are far more glaring than the offensive ones. If he could routinely put out a top half of the league and top-40 nationally defense, we'd feel vastly different about him as a coach.

[tower912]

I can think of two inbounds plays off the top of my head, not counting the lucky toss to Sam v Creighton.   Sometimes, the players actually have to run them.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

I can think of two inbounds plays off the top of my head, not counting the lucky toss to Sam v Creighton.   Sometimes, the players actually have to run them.

Yeah Wojo really screwed up that inbounds play at Creighton.  Markus shouldn't have been inbounding it.

[brewcity77]

Yeah Wojo really screwed up that inbounds play at Creighton.  Markus shouldn't have been inbounding it.

Ners, is that you? 

[MuggsyB]

We really need a knockdown shooter. 

[McLintock]

Yep, yep.

Fact:

Marquette is 8th in adjusted offense in the BIG East this year not 4th.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Fact:

Marquette is 8th in adjusted offense in the BIG East this year not 4th.

Cool.

Usually offense hasn’t been a problem with Wojo.

[MU82]

There is some place between roll the ball out there and super genius.
All folks are saying is that Wojo is nothing special when it comes to coaching offense. We don’t even have an inbounds play other than throw it the length of the court and hope we get to it first.

The world’s not black and white.

Not gonna defend Wojo's overall coaching because it hasn't been good enough, but until this season we have run a lot of really good BOOB plays. I think some borderline-Jos even complimented him on it. And even this season, like tower said, I can remember some that worked for a lay-in, including one to Cain the game before last.

So while I will agree that our BOOB plays haven't been as effective this season as in the past, I don't think it's necessary to use hyperbole to criticize Wojo. Lots of stuff to choose from.

[willie warrior]

We really need a knockdown shooter.

We need a lot, most importantly a new coach.

[MuggsyB]

We need a lot, most importantly a new coach.

I have no retort willie....it's been a tough 7 yrs.

[muwarrior97]

Players who can dribble, inbound, shoot and pass #Easy

[brewcity77]

Fact:

Marquette is 8th in adjusted offense in the BIG East this year not 4th.

No they aren't. They are 4th. Go to their kenpom page, click the "conference only" button, or go to the Big East league page.