Stop blaming the coach

[warriors78]

Wojo has tactical coaching flaws, but Marquette is lucky to have him and he's lucky to be here.  It's a mutually beneficial relationship.  He's doing a phenomenal job recruiting and is keeping the program relevant and in the top 25-40 which I'm happy with.  I'm not sure what expectations are for most, but I don't ever want to go back to being irrelevant I'm enjoying this era starting with Crean.

In five of last six games lost, the team (excluding Howard) shot 29%, 23%, 27%, 21% and 35% from 3pt range.  This offense relies on the 3pt shot given limited inside scoring options and that FG% won't beat anyone especially as many shots are uncontested (thanks to Howard).  The officiating in the DePaul loss was horrendous and lopsided in DePaul's favor, but to their credit hitting 31 free throws at 90% is something I can't recall ever seeing.  Howard needs to make better decisions too.  The whole team needs to step up! 

[The Sultan]

Thanks Mrs. Wojo.

[Mike Deane's Seat Belt]

Somebody is on the team payroll

[#UnleashSean]

"but I don't ever want to go back to being irrelevant "

What have you called the last 6 years?

[hairy worthen]

Wojo has tactical coaching flaws, but Marquette is lucky to have him and he's lucky to be here.  It's a mutually beneficial relationship.  He's doing a phenomenal job recruiting and is keeping the program relevant and in the top 25-40 which I'm happy with.  I'm not sure what expectations are for most, but I don't ever want to go back to being irrelevant I'm enjoying this era starting with Crean.

In five of last six games lost, the team (excluding Howard) shot 29%, 23%, 27%, 21% and 35% from 3pt range.  This offense relies on the 3pt shot given limited inside scoring options and that FG% won't beat anyone especially as many shots are uncontested (thanks to Howard).  The officiating in the DePaul loss was horrendous and lopsided in DePaul's favor, but to their credit hitting 31 free throws at 90% is something I can't recall ever seeing.  Howard needs to make better decisions too.  The whole team needs to step up!

Top 25-40 is barely relevant.  Relevance is winning some tournament games, which is difficult to do as a 6 to 10 seed.

BTW the refs sucked both ways, don't be a blind homer. If you asked a DePaul fan (if you could find one) they would say the refs favored Marquette.

[BM1090]

Wojo has tactical coaching flaws, but Marquette is lucky to have him and he's lucky to be here.  It's a mutually beneficial relationship.  He's doing a phenomenal job recruiting and is keeping the program relevant and in the top 25-40 which I'm happy with.  I'm not sure what expectations are for most, but I don't ever want to go back to being irrelevant I'm enjoying this era starting with Crean.

In five of last six games lost, the team (excluding Howard) shot 29%, 23%, 27%, 21% and 35% from 3pt range.  This offense relies on the 3pt shot given limited inside scoring options and that FG% won't beat anyone especially as many shots are uncontested (thanks to Howard).  The officiating in the DePaul loss was horrendous and lopsided in DePaul's favor, but to their credit hitting 31 free throws at 90% is something I can't recall ever seeing.  Howard needs to make better decisions too.  The whole team needs to step up!

He needs to recruit players who are more consistent shooters, then. I defended this team during the 1-3 stretch to start conference season. I defended them during the 1-4 stretch against Nova, PC, CU, GU and SHU. I was optimistic when they won 6 of 7.

It's year six. He's responsible for winning games and the loss last night was unacceptable. He still has a chance to turn it around and finish strong but he's running out of time.

[MUCam]

Wojo has tactical coaching flaws, but Marquette is lucky to have him and he's lucky to be here.  It's a mutually beneficial relationship.  He's doing a phenomenal job recruiting and is keeping the program relevant and in the top 25-40 which I'm happy with.  I'm not sure what expectations are for most, but I don't ever want to go back to being irrelevant I'm enjoying this era starting with Crean.

In five of last six games lost, the team (excluding Howard) shot 29%, 23%, 27%, 21% and 35% from 3pt range.  This offense relies on the 3pt shot given limited inside scoring options and that FG% won't beat anyone especially as many shots are uncontested (thanks to Howard).  The officiating in the DePaul loss was horrendous and lopsided in DePaul's favor, but to their credit hitting 31 free throws at 90% is something I can't recall ever seeing.  Howard needs to make better decisions too.  The whole team needs to step up!

I appreciate the comment and prior to yesterday it would have run nearly lock-step with my thoughts, except that 25-40 is a little too low for my expectations.

However, organizational flaws must eventually fall at the feet of those in charge. You simply cannot ignore the phrase that Harry Truman made popular; "the buck stops here."

I'm rooting for Wojo. I'm rooting for Markus. I'm rooting for the rest of this team. The whole team needs to step up, but eventually....the buck has to stop somewhere.

It's tough having a player like Markus on your team. He is so special, but sometimes kills us. I harken back to the Seton Hall game last Saturday. Momentum was with us as we make a run at the end of the 1st half, the crowd is standing, Markus drives into four players and turns the ball over leading to a Powell three. Killed us. Someone compared him to Brett Favre. I thought the comparison is great. He will amaze and help you win games you wouldn't otherwise win. But he'll also confound you and lose games for you. Ultimately, it's up to Wojo to manage. I'd give him a "C-" grade at best in that regard.

Whatever is going on now can't continue. It's not a working product. Enough with the blame; the buck has to stop somewhere and that somewhere is with Wojo.

[#UnleashSean]

Top 25-40 is barely relevant.  Relevance is winning some tournament games, which is difficult to do as a 6 to 10 seed.

BTW the refs sucked both ways, don't be a blind homer. If you asked a DePaul fan (if you could find one) they would say the refs favored Marquette.

My favorite line in the game thread was when someone said markus gets no calls. As he leading the game (and conference) in free throw attempts.

[Mike Deane's Seat Belt]

Irrelevant like having zero players your head coach has recruited in his entire career at marquette active in the NBA?????????

[joparks]

In five of last six games lost, the team (excluding Howard) shot 29%, 23%, 27%, 21% and 35% from 3pt range.  This offense relies on the 3pt shot given limited inside scoring options and that FG% won't beat anyone especially as many shots are uncontested (thanks to Howard).  The officiating in the DePaul loss was horrendous and lopsided in DePaul's favor, but to their credit hitting 31 free throws at 90% is something I can't recall ever seeing.  Howard needs to make better decisions too.  The whole team needs to step up!

While you present a compelling argument, I just have to ask this...

Who is responsible for bringing in said talent that you say is performing so poorly and who is responsible for developing the scheme and the strategy that ...

1. Gets the best results out of the talent?
2. Minimizes the exposure of that flawed talent?
3. Is responsible for the development of that talent - i.e. graduate a better and more complete player than they came in with?

I think after you review these 3 questions, you might want to amend the title of this thread.

[NickelDimer]

This topic reminds me that there always has to be one

[MU1980]

Wojo has tactical coaching flaws, but Marquette is lucky to have him and he's lucky to be here.  It's a mutually beneficial relationship.  He's doing a phenomenal job recruiting and is keeping the program relevant and in the top 25-40 which I'm happy with.  I'm not sure what expectations are for most, but I don't ever want to go back to being irrelevant I'm enjoying this era starting with Crean.

In five of last six games lost, the team (excluding Howard) shot 29%, 23%, 27%, 21% and 35% from 3pt range.  This offense relies on the 3pt shot given limited inside scoring options and that FG% won't beat anyone especially as many shots are uncontested (thanks to Howard).  The officiating in the DePaul loss was horrendous and lopsided in DePaul's favor, but to their credit hitting 31 free throws at 90% is something I can't recall ever seeing.  Howard needs to make better decisions too.  The whole team needs to step up!

Overall I have been supportive of Wojo and have wanted to see him continue as our coach.  With that said, the collapses in each of the last two seasons is very troublesome and that is absolutely on the coach.  You are saying it is not his fault that the team is shooting poorly from 3pt range, but I disagree.  There are many different facets to coaching, but two of the most important are psychology and physiology.  An entire team does not just stop missing 3pt shots for no reason when they were hitting at an impressive clip the entire season.  Therefore, it is either a psychological issue where they do not have confidence, which it is absolutely the coaches job to create a confident team.  Or it is a physiological issue in that they are overworked and overtired by the end of the season and they are burned out.  This is also on the coach.  Hard work is extremely important to success, but coaches can and do push their teams too hard on a daily basis and a good coach is able to recognize when to push it and when to relax a little.  Practicing extremely hard every day, along with a rigorous game and travel schedule and academics on top of all that, can cause enough fatigue to alter the shot of an entire team.  And please do not respond and say these are young kids and they should not get tired, unless you were a division I athlete in a highly intense sport like men's basketball.  You can absolutely overtrain and it appears this team seems to do that each year and it shows in their end of the season collapses.  This can combine with a confidence issue and then you have a real mess with a team falling apart two years in a row.  Frustrating to watch and I will always blame it on the coach when an entire team is all falling apart at the same time. 

[PuertoRicanNightmare]

helluva job keeping us relevant! What the hell does that mean?

If that's what Wojo thinks he's doing it explains a lot.

[connie]

I admit I am pretty surprised at the thoughtful, appropriate and well reasoned responses to this post. (Yeah Scoop!).  At some point what you want has to yield to what is, and that becomes clearer every day.  I appreciate your reference to the shooting problems, but would suggest that could also be a function of us going through the second round of our conference opponents who now have a game plan in place to stop us, and for the second year in a row, we have no answer.  And the person responsible for that is not Markus.

[San Diego Warrior]

Our concern at the beginning of the year was having some consistent scorers around Howard after we lost the Hauser brothers.  Sam would have alleviated a lot of our late season scoring woes that have plagued this team, and getting a player of his caliber and experience is difficult based on the timing of transfers. 

We hoped that Bailey, Sacar and others would step up as consistent scoring options this season, but that just hasn't happened.  The only consistent scoring option has been Howard and I'd rather see him take more contested shots than let some of the guys shoot an open 3 right now.  We may need Howard to just play hero ball to have a chance at any run in the tourney.

[monkeyman34]

I admit I am pretty surprised at the thoughtful, appropriate and well reasoned responses to this post. (Yeah Scoop!).  At some point what you want has to yield to what is, and that becomes clearer every day.  I appreciate your reference to the shooting problems, but would suggest that could also be a function of us going through the second round of our conference opponents who now have a game plan in place to stop us, and for the second year in a row, we have no answer.  And the person responsible for that is not Markus.

This This This This This This. 

[BM1090]

This This This This This This.

I don't think it's this though, because it wasn't an issue from 2015-2018. We performed better in the 2nd half of the season in 16, 17 and 18.

[MU1980]

I admit I am pretty surprised at the thoughtful, appropriate and well reasoned responses to this post. (Yeah Scoop!).  At some point what you want has to yield to what is, and that becomes clearer every day.  I appreciate your reference to the shooting problems, but would suggest that could also be a function of us going through the second round of our conference opponents who now have a game plan in place to stop us, and for the second year in a row, we have no answer.  And the person responsible for that is not Markus.

This may be part of the reason, but many of the missed threes are wide open threes.  It is actually astonishing to me how many open threes have been missed in this last part of the season. 

[cheese ball chaser]

Top 25-40 is barely relevant.  Relevance is winning some tournament games, which is difficult to do as a 6 to 10 seed.

BTW the refs sucked both ways, don't be a blind homer. If you asked a DePaul fan (if you could find one) they would say the refs favored Marquette.

I was at the game and the reffing was bad both ways, maybe even favored towards Marquette. There were a handful of ticky tacky bumps called on DePaul when guarding Howard.

[WhiteTrash]

Gotta love internet message boards. "I'll say some b@tsh!t crazy stuff and see how many people react"

This thread needs to die.

[4everwarriors]

Higherin' a coach iz a crapshoot. Wee soiled our Haggars on dis won. Adios ta ewe and da horse ya road inn on, aina?

[war1980rior]

This may be part of the reason, but many of the missed threes are wide open threes.  It is actually astonishing to me how many open threes have been missed in this last part of the season.

I'm with you MU1980 on the missed threes.  We've had some great starts with Markus dishing the ball well, and the threes don't fall.  Very frustrating to watch, because it allows Markus to get into trouble with the double teams he faces on every possession.  Some of the others have mentioned a lack of confidence and psychological troubles, but at the same time say if they are playing division 1 Bball, they should be in great shape.  I think it's the same.  They've all played for years, most of two decades for many, so suddenly losing confidence is the problem?  I don't know since I'm not a sports shrink, but the old adage of "shoot your way out of it" comes to mind.  Good shooters usually find the groove again.

I've been very dismayed with Bailey's passing up threes lately, as that's a difference maker for us.  I think someone has to work with Koby, as we've seen moments of solid play.  If the threes fall, we're pretty tough.  If they don't, we aren't.  Inside game seems to be starting to get better with Jayce healthier but will not match a team like Seton Hall.

As to the losses being unacceptable, no loss is ever acceptable to competitive people.  You have to realize every team in the BEast is in the top 100, according to NET.  Pretty tough game every night.  DePaul?  As bad as they've been, we've lost to them when we were significantly better and they were no better or weaker.  They are playing a local rival and step up to it.  Those games are always close.  Like it or not, going to lose every now and then.  To be honest, that's my biggest worry on our schedule because of that.

Pretty much everybody in college ball has an "unacceptable" loss.  Kentucky, Duke, Villanova, etc.  I guess everyone should be fired there.

Not sure if you remember, but in our day, Al used to skip practices all the time.  What kind of coach is that?  Unless an alum out there has a lot of money they want to donate to the athletic department to get the coach of their choice/dreams, Wojo isn't the worst option.  I don't see why firing him is going to launch us into the Final Four next couple years.  We're on an upswing, like it or not, and have some warts, but usually time fixes a lot of those.  Six years isn't that long in the big scheme of things.  I just don't seen any better options out there.  Whining and complaining about a workable coach is a waste of time at this point and only serves to damage our team (think recruits - yes they read this stuff).

Sorry, not writing this to get anyone's comments, but just find the lack of support insulting to the team.  Sorry for the length and randomness.  Back to work!

[war1980rior]

Gotta love internet message boards. "I'll say some b@tsh!t crazy stuff and see how many people react"

This thread needs to die.

Truth!

[WhiteTrash]

Sorry, not writing this to get anyone's comments, but just find the lack of support insulting to the team.

I find Wojo's lack of coaching ability insulting to the team. Markus and the rest deserve much better.

[Goose]

I blame the fans that suck, not Wojo.