2023 Team Outlook

[Viper]

Adding Washington would go a long way towards making me feel better about next year. I think that, realistically, as it stands, we're a solid team and probably on or around the bubble.  Washington, due to his strengths and our current weaknesses, would go a long way towards improving us

100%

[MU82]

Warren Washington would be a nice addition, but I'm also looking at the guards and noticing we don't have a veteran bucket getter. Still think Washington is probably the primary target but it wouldn't surprise me to see them pivot to a veteran scorer at the guard spot.

Yep. If Shaka isn't gonna recruit over anybody (and therefore won't sign both Washington and a scoring guard), he can see if he lands Washington and then pivot as you say. I just looked at The Athletic's long article about all the available transfers, and it was filled with veteran scoring guards.

[Goose]

I think we land a grad transfer guard to replace Morsell.

[GoldenEagles03]

Bulls Head Coach Billy Donovan ended his pregame press conference before their game against the Bucks praising Shaka Smart for the direction he is taking Marquette. Shaka was an assistant for Donovan at Florida. That was pretty cool.

[Herman Cain]

Bulls Head Coach Billy Donovan ended his pregame press conference before their game against the Bucks praising Shaka Smart for the direction he is taking Marquette. Shaka was an assistant for Donovan at Florida. That was pretty cool.

MU should Find that tape and send it to all recruits

[We R Final Four]

MU should Find that tape and send it to all recruits

Agreed.

[Johnny B]

heres a random video of don9van saying shakas a good coach plz come to MU kid"

[MattyWarrior]

Shaka and company have a ton of guys to coach up this summer, I wonder what the plans are for the underclassmen

[tower912]

Bilas said the same about Wojo.

[We R Final Four]

heres a random video of don9van saying shakas a good coach plz come to MU kid"

Haha......

[SaveOD238]

Bulls Head Coach Billy Donovan ended his pregame press conference before their game against the Bucks praising Shaka Smart for the direction he is taking Marquette. Shaka was an assistant for Donovan at Florida. That was pretty cool.

What was the context for this? Completely out of nowhere? Did someone ask him about playing at Fiserv?

Seems odd to just randomly shout out a college coach like that.

[muwarrior69]

Shaka took a roster that on paper had no business making the NIT and led them to a 9 seed. Assuming we land Wrightsil and a Washington level transfer and lose no one else (assuming Justin is gone), next year's roster will be better on paper than last year's was before the season started. I expect another overperformance. Somewhere in the 5-8 seed realm. Coaching matters.

Year 1 saw huge developmental jumps for Lewis, Morsell, OMax, Oso, and Kolek. Kam played way above his high school ranking. Kur and Greg were about the same players they were the previous season and Mitchell, Joplin, and Ellis roughly played to their high school rankings with Mitchell/Joplin occasionally showing promise and Ellis largely underperforming.

No reason not to expect similar developmental jumps this season and at least one of the four freshmen (including Itejere) to play well above their ranking. It may not happen but the baseline has been set.

I hope you're right. I also hope they all decide to stick around and not jump for "greener pastures".

[PointWarrior]

That's not very COLE-like.

Shaka took a roster that on paper had no business making the NIT and led them to a 9 seed. Assuming we land Wrightsil and a Washington level transfer and lose no one else (assuming Justin is gone), next year's roster will be better on paper than last year's was before the season started. I expect another overperformance. Somewhere in the 5-8 seed realm. Coaching matters.

Year 1 saw huge developmental jumps for Lewis, Morsell, OMax, Oso, and Kolek. Kam played way above his high school ranking. Kur and Greg were about the same players they were the previous season and Mitchell, Joplin, and Ellis roughly played to their high school rankings with Mitchell/Joplin occasionally showing promise and Ellis largely underperforming.

No reason not to expect similar developmental jumps this season and at least one of the four freshmen (including Itejere) to play well above their ranking. It may not happen but the baseline has been set.

[GoldenEagles03]

Per PaintTouches on Twitter:

"Tyler Kolek shot 51.4% from 3 on catch and shoot jumpers in Big East play, scoring the 2nd most points and putting up the best percentage of any #mubb player on those.

As lethal as he is as a passer with the ball in his hands, a 2nd PG will help his shooting tremendously."

To this point I would not be surprised one bit to see another guard brought in. Kolek was the best in the Big East at distributing the ball last year but was also great on the catch and shoot. He played the 2 at George Mason and shot well from deep as well. May see him get more action at the 2 moving forward.

[DoctorV]

Per PaintTouches on Twitter:

"Tyler Kolek shot 51.4% from 3 on catch and shoot jumpers in Big East play, scoring the 2nd most points and putting up the best percentage of any #mubb player on those.

As lethal as he is as a passer with the ball in his hands, a 2nd PG will help his shooting tremendously."

To this point I would not be surprised one bit to see another guard brought in. Kolek was the best in the Big East at distributing the ball last year but was also great on the catch and shoot. He played the 2 at George Mason and shot well from deep as well. May see him get more action at the 2 moving forward.

My eyes must have deceived me

[tower912]

Mitchell and SJones will probably get run at the 1.

[GoldenEagles03]

My eyes must have deceived me

Your eyes did not deceive you. He is really good on the catch and shoot, and.. well..this is what your eyes focused on:

"And the other side of that coin, Kolek shot 14.7% on off-the-dribble 3s.

Until that improves, even to something like 28%, which is still bad, defenses can go under all screens. We saw that play out in the 2nd half of Big East play."
-PaintTouches

[panda]

My eyes must have deceived me

I mean there's no way that's accurate right? Unless he shot way better earlier in the season, because he was really poor towards the end of the year.

[GoldenEagles03]

I mean there's no way that's accurate right? Unless he shot way better earlier in the season, because he was really poor towards the end of the year.

Catch and shoot. He was really good. Off the dribble he was really bad. Read above. It was night and day.

[tower912]

Catch and shoot:  good
Off the dribble:  bad

Don't make it complicated.

[The Sultan]

Catch and shoot:  good
Off the dribble:  bad

Don't make it complicated.

Which is probably why you shouldn't want him to be your primary PG.

[tower912]

Except for all of those pesky assists.   We can hope he improves in the offseason.

[The Sultan]

Except for all of those pesky assists.   We can hope he improves in the offseason.

A better way to say it is that it will be good to have more than one PG option on the floor at once.

[PGsHeroes32]

I mean there's no way that's accurate right? Unless he shot way better earlier in the season, because he was really poor towards the end of the year.

I'm surprised it was 51.4%

But not surprised it was a good number. I said many times what we saw last year in limited sample he was extremely capable at catch and shoot and never cringed at him taking those shots.


It was any shot or lay up off the dribble that caused legit nightmares.

[tower912]

A better way to say it is that it will be good to have more than one PG option on the floor at once.

It is always good to have multiple ballhandling and offense initiating options on the floor.