Tipping Point for Wojo’s Program

[CountryRoads]

The next two months could be a very wild ride for the MU program.

As some posters who crunch the numbers have concluded, MU will hear their name called on Selection Sunday regardless of how the remaining regular season and BET games play out. This opens the possibility for MU to strike lightning in a bottle and advance to the second weekend of the tournament and be just a few games away from places they haven't been in two decades. A feat quite possible considering how "down" college basketball is this year. MU lost at Green Bay one year and ended up one game away from the final four. That year it also took a late choke and miracle game winning shot over a 14 seed to get past round one. Being in the tournament is exciting, and it's something MU fans have to look forward to in a few weeks.

On the other hand, we have a coach getting booed loudly at home games and who hasn't won a tournament game in the six years he's been here. Even the most forgiving posters of this board have seemingly seen enough and are bracing for a change. March 28 will mark the 7 year anniversary of the last NCAA tournament win against Miami. Wojos body language and behavior on the sidelines has also provided evidence that he may be checked out.

But wait, Marquette has one of the best recruiting classes in the country slated to come in next season. One the best in modern history for MU.  Other blue chippers like Mane and the two who visited against Seton Hall remain strongly in the mix. Would have to imagine Mane makes his decision by the end of April.

So, if you had to go on record now, where are we sitting at the end of April?

1. Are we talking about a great run in the tournament and feeling positive about how this season ended? It's still possible after all. 

2. Does April end with MU having a new coach? If so, what happened and how did it all go down? Does the whole roster and recruiting class implode?

3. Or does everything just remain status quo and predictable? We finish the year as a 7-10 seed and maybe lose in the first round or even win a game before losing in round 2. The recruits stay firmly committed and maybe we land Mane (maybe we don't). In any case, it all ends up "acceptable" to most when looking at the season as a whole.

Number 3 is the safe answer but I think it's the least likely. I think we're truly at a tipping point under Wojo and in the next two months this program is going shift drastically one way or the other.

So, what are we going to be talking about at the end of April? What will some of the thread titles be?

[dgies9156]

The biggest problem I saw leaving the Winnie last night was rising apathy toward the program. Having been a fan for more than 50 years (since I was a child), the apathy is the biggest threat facing the basketball program in the coming year or two. It's something that Marquette can ill afford and while I don't expect a job action in the next few weeks, something has to change.

A year ago, after we were destroyed by Ja Morant, some pundits believed we might be the fourth best team in the country. OK, they were delusional but before Hausershima, we probably had enough talent in this down year to be a Top 10 team. Then the wheels came off. And people wonder why we are apathetic.

The problems in our program are:

Hausershima -- Baseball has a relatively new statistic called Wins Above Replacement ("WAR"). For Sam Hauser, the WAR is 2.75. We lost last night because we did not have a reliable second option to Markus on the floor. Had Sam scored 17 last night, we would have won. His defense wasn't always the best but it could not have been any worse than what we saw last evening. Providence, Butler I and even the Villanova II loss might have been avoided had we had a strong, reliable second scorer to Markus. We don't and when Markus scores half the points in a game, we too often lose.

The feeling about Brendan Bailey reminds me of the feeling I had about Todd Mayo after Vander Blue took his ill-advised plunge into the pros. I had hoped Mayo and Bailey would step up and we'd be fine. Both were disappointments.

Offensive Ineptitude -- This one has been beaten to death but last night was unforgivable. When DePaul crawled back in the game, too many of our guys were afraid. Several times, Brendan Bailey was open in the corner and selected a drive to the basket rather than scoring. Sacar had a few mildly contested shots near the top of the key but passed. In crunch time, he stood rather than moved and was active in the offense. When we get behind, too often we get out of our offense and start chucking from three-land.

I have no clue what happens in practice but I don't sense our guys have the confidence to step up and step out.

Theo Needs a Badass Pill -- Maybe it was the foul outs earlier in his college career, but Theo is too nice a guy on the court. Theo needs to be the next in a line of badasses that play for Marquette. I'm thinking Maurice Lucas or Bob Lackey bad ass. The world needs to know, when you drive on Theo, one way or another, bad things will happen. When you get in Theo's way, bad things will happen. I sense there really isn't a lot of focus on the center position at Marquette. He's there to drive, block shots and set screens. Theo can be more and I suspect with the right coaching he would be.

All of these things contribute to a malaise that's setting in among our fan base. This is the time of year when we should be excited, tuning up for the NCAAs and our fans feeling really good about our body of work. Instead, point to a single Marquette fan who is confident we're going to win but one game among those we have left. I don't think there are many.

Everything I've laid out here is coaching and leadership. Keeping the Hausers in check; demanding that we don't have Markus and the Roleplayers; and, expecting Theo to be a bad ass and our centers to be something other than rebounders and ball screeners falls on our coaching. Pure and simple.

This is the challenge facing the AD and leadership. Can we right the ship? Or is the rebuild that would be inevitable if Wojo left or was replaced less painful than four more years of this crap?