Fast cowboys. Not just a country song.

[MUfan12]

The way MU slow walked the ball up and played catch on their side of the court with that light press drove me nuts.  It guaranteed they had a short play clock on nearly every possession.

A signature of Wojo's teams... The way to kill a press off is attack it and score on it, but they're content just getting the ball to the frontcourt.

[Shooter McGavin]

They did put Garcia in the middle of the zone but Ok St. did a nice job having another player shade towards him to take it away. The problem for there was we had no other answers, either to find another way to get him the ball in the high post or another way to attack the zone. Either way it was incredibly disappointing.

You are correct.  They did have Garcia in the middle of the zone and it seemed very difficult to get him the ball.  We also had many open looks from three and simply bricked the shots (a few were in and out).  When we drove to the hoop (mainly McEwen) many times there were no calls even though he got hammered with the body and the arms were coming down. There were also many good idea passes not completed leading to turnovers either due to the length and quickness of ok st or simply just bad passes.   Even minus the head scratching turnovers with our defensive effort last night we should have won.  The out of time outs turnovers were baffling though.  I hope Wojo can right the ship on offense slowly but surely.  I think if the defense continues this is a team that will get better as the year goes on as opposed to the other way around.  We shall see.

[MU82]

Terrible offensive gameplan against the zone. Players just stood around, no off the ball movement, the absolute last thing you need against a zone. It would be one thing if the players tried but failed to execute against the zone. Then you can cut some slack and say a young team facing its first zone couldn't execute, they'll learn. This was not that. There was no semblance of a zone break offense. That's a coaching issue.

I know his shot was off, but Garcia needed to play 30+ minutes tonight. He is the ideal zone breaking player. He was the tallest guy on the court. I would have parked him at the free throw line every possession, gotten him the ball and let him shoot, drive, or playmake. There would have been misses, but they would have been better shots than what we were getting. I saw that happen three times in the second half. Two led to missed shots, one lead to a three by Cain. 3 points in 3 possession is a ppp of 1. That would have been more than enough to get a win. Again, this is a coaching issue.

I know we had concerns about their length, but we saw almost no lineups with Torrence and Carton together. I think those have been our most offensively efficient lineups to this point. Might have been worth trying in order to jump start the offense.

The box score says Theo had 6 TOs, is that correct? Length was bothering him down there but he missed a couple of wide open shooters when the defense collapsed on him. He was making those passes in the first two games.

With the team we have, we should never be slowing the game down and shooting in the last 5 seconds. Obviously, we should look for the best shot, but I think it is okay for us to have a quick trigger. Our rebounders will almost always be better than our opponents. Even if we miss, I think we have a very good chance of getting the offensive board and an easier shot on the second chance. Lewis with 13 boards in 22 minutes, that was a treat.

Symir's shot was terrible tonight. Tons of open looks for three, none of them even looked close to going in.

I wouldn't judge Akanno too harshly. Dude has had like two practices with the rest of the team. I think under normal circumstances, he would have been an ideal player for this game. These were not normal circumstances.

Every one of Carton's threes look like they are going in. I hope he doesn't have what Koby did last year. Once those shots start falling, I think we will see the team come together.

Koby was a dude tonight. 21 points with an eFG% of 50% (in a game where the team shot 40.6 eFG%).4 assists to 3 turnovers (in a game where the team had A/TO ratio of 13 to 24). And played stellar D on a future NBA All Star. I'd have to rewatch to be sure but I'm pretty sure Cunningham was 2 for 7 in the half court with Koby being the primary defender, and the two he made were contested mid-range jumpers.

The offensive gameplan pissed me off to no end. The only plus side I can come up with is that despite an awful offensive gameplan, we still had a chance to win this one. We shot uncharacteristically poorly from the line, we had a dumb technical foul, Cain/Carton/Torrence/Elliott/McEwen all had wide open looks from three that they couldn't convert on. Even with an atrocious attack against the zone, we could have the won the game and that's because of our defense and rebounding.

Beat Wisconsin and all is forgiven. Beat UCLA instead of Wisconsin and we are back on track for where we should be. Beat both and we won't even remember this game happened.

Superb analysis. I was very disappointed with the coaching last night. It's on Wojo, obviously, but before the head coach goes into the LR at halftime, he talks for several minutes with his assistants. So apparently none of them had any solutions, either.

Cunningham > Carton, aina?

Giannis > Connaughton, oona?

[shoothoops]

Marquette isn't getting good enough guard play. And I'm not talking about McEwen.

I am surprised Sy isn't significantly improved this year.

Carton has been undisciplined, and indecisive at times, at both ends.

Greg would arguably be their best guard if he were healthy. He really understands the game. Greg isn't going to ever be healthy at MU. His slow footspeed just hasn't improved from his injuries.

Others don't seem ready.

Jamal is trying to fill the Sacar role.

MU needs much better guard play.

[mumi27]

MU needs much better guard play.

Agreed. People have already talked about how Carton needs to step up but holy crap was Torrence useless last night. Just terrible

[Shooter McGavin]

Marquette isn't getting good enough guard play. And I'm not talking about McEwen.

I am surprised Sy isn't significantly improved this year.

Carton has been undisciplined, and indecisive at times, at both ends.

Greg would arguably be their best guard if he were healthy. He really understands the game. Greg isn't going to ever be healthy at MU. His slow footspeed just hasn't improved from his injuries.

Others don't seem ready.

Jamal is trying to fill the Sacar role.

MU needs much better guard play.

Correct on all fronts

[dgies9156]

To repeat- I really, really hope that Wojo pulls it all together but I do not expect him to do so on an ongoing basis. There will be games when he looks like he has turned the corner but will it last?

Brother Snoop:

So do I. If we have to start over, it will be three to five years from the date of the Wojo extraction before we get good again. And, who knows whether with the current economic environment, the Jesuits won't go cheap again -- like they did post Al.

The only way I see Wojo to get to the "next level" is to hire a Jerry Wainwright/Hank Raymonds-type of bench coach. Both those guys knew the game and were great first assistants. I'd love to see someone like Steve Lavin leave the broadcast booth and become our 1a to help run games. Basically, we can acknowledge Wojo as the HC, but he needs a better game manager and someone with a little gray hair.

Otherwise, OMG it's just hoping for an occasional win over Villanova. And, I'M TIRED OF IN-SEASON HIGHLIGHTS!!!!

 

[Galway Eagle]

The more I think about it, there was a sequence where we cut the lead to 8 from 11 off a 3, then we had a stop, great pass from Garcia to Jamal on the wing, he misses it, then stop, then I want to say missed layup. That sequence to me was the epitome of the second half. We finally had something go through the hoop and couldn't capitalize. I think Jamal hits that second three and maybe we get some momentum but we couldn't shoot the ball into lake michigan