Our big men

[MU Avenue]

Many people felt compelled here to rally around and defend Ousmane Barro after his strong performance Saturday in Marquette's win at Cincinnati. Congratulations to Barro on having his best game in an MU uniform.

I have expressed concern here about Barro and Dwight Burke. Our big men lack skills, strength, consistency and reliability. Is there anyone here who would disagree?

Barro certainly has moments when he plays somewhere between OK and really well. Much of the time, however, his play hovers between rough and awful. He is clumsy, he misses layups and even dunks, he is often not ready for quick passes, he commits too many fouls (especially early in games) and he has greased bricks for hands.

It remains true: Barro does not have the stuff of a starting big man at a Top 25 collegiate basketball program.

Why is everyone ignoring the fact that Coach Crean pulled Barro from the starting lineup? Or that Barro's statistics, presented below in a post from muPARTY, show a player who tends to perform on the low end of the spectrum?

Barro, one of our big men, had a terrific game against Cincinnati. Marquette won that game by 15 points.

Coincidence?

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FROM muPARTY (Feb. 2, 2008):

i didn't want to rain on this great performance but now i have to defend some of the posters (including myself) that have been critical of Ous. first let me state, i was not the one saying he didn't deserve a scholarship.

i remember John Madden saying something (can't remember the exact quote) in the area of "first time is luck, second time is pattern, third time is skill".
the gist of it is, one something happens like 4-5 times in a row, it's not a fluke or luck.
Points - Rebounds
6 - 7
2 - 4
4 - 2
0 - 3
0 - 1
4 - 6
2 - 4

that's Ous's line the last 7 games (prior to today) = 2.57pts/game - 3.85 reb/game

one good game does not a season make for a player. i'm just here to simply say, don't go leaping back on the bandwagon and start questioning and critizing everyone that called him out on these boards. he had one showing. now lets see the 2nd good showing, then a 3rd good showing. 19-10? no, but a 8-5/6 game, yes. he's a 6'10 center, and the only one, on a top Big East team, it's required. he still needs to prove he can be consistent in these important games down the stretch. and he also HAS to be able to create some kinda shot for himself, becauset the rest of the Big East isn't going to do what cinci did today, keep pressuring a 3 that we weren't hitting and abandoning the post.

I don't mean to rain on this parade, and I'm sorry to Ous if it appears that i'm demeaning his performance, i'm not. but i'm not about to annoint a guy who scored more than 4pts for the first time in 6 games.

... i THOUGHT before i posted and i backed it up with #s

[NCMUFan]

9 of 10 shooting.  Looked like great hands for me.  Shooting on the move.  We will need that today.  Drive and feed.

[muball]

If we get a solid rebounding game 8-10 and 10 points combined out of the 5 position tonight it will be great. Ville has good post players compared to Cincy.

[Big Papi]

Is it a coincidence that when he received significant minutes, he produced decent stats?

Barro has been very erratic this year as he has his entire career.  He has a lot of limitations but you can't look at those stats and say that he does not have the stuff to start for a top 25 team.  He has been only playing limited minutes this year for the most part.  I want to see Barro play 25-28 minutes consistently before banishing him. 

[sigep80]

When our guards penetrate and dish to Ouse and DB, they can score and make good contributions.  In the Lville and UConn losses, there were very few pentration/pass posessions, thus our offense stalled and the bigs don't score.  Our bigs are never going to be post up, pass the ball and spin scorers - but they can score and be effective off of penetration passes, good spacing and an uptemp game.

[NCMUFan]

Amen