2023 Team Outlook

[lawdog77]

There are, and they can.

Yes, there are all of these hidden gems at Marquette just playing pickup ball. Maybe MU should field two teams. 

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

There are, and they can.

Where are these guys!? With this wealth of talent willing to come to Marquette when they could be getting basketball scholarships elsewhere, we should be like the Badgers and carry 14 walk ons at all times!

[4everwarriors]

I average 22 putts/rd, hey?

[panda]

Over the course of a season? Not a chance.

Probably not the kids you were hanging out with in school....

Just gotta know the right people.

[Viper]

Yes, there are all of these hidden gems at Marquette just playing pickup ball. Maybe MU should field two teams.

your cynicism demonstrates your ignorance.

[wadesworld]

Man Scoop is funny.  I'm not a big believer in Kolek myself, but the idea that there are guys walking around MU's campus that are better at basketball than him is hysterical.  If true, those guys are both lazy and extremely dumb.  Kolek is good enough to get a mid major scholarship first, and now a high major scholarship, and contribute at both places.  If there are guys walking around campus that are better at basketball than him, even if you think Kolek's in over his head at MU, those guys who are better than him at the very least should've been able to get a low major full ride.  If they had any sense in them, they'd pick out a low major with great academics and get a free degree there rather than paying $60K/year to be a regular student at Marquette.

Kolek isn't really at fault.  The problem is we don't have anyone better than him behind him.  Or at least didn't last year.  That's why I've consistently thought that if we're going to be a Tournament team, Sean Jones is going to need to be our best guard.  Because from what I saw last year, our guards aren't even close to good enough to have us competing at the top half of the Big East.

[panda]

Man Scoop is funny.  I'm not a big believer in Kolek myself, but the idea that there are guys walking around MU's campus that are better at basketball than him is hysterical.  If true, those guys are both lazy and extremely dumb.  Kolek is good enough to get a mid major scholarship first, and now a high major scholarship, and contribute at both places.  If there are guys walking around campus that are better at basketball than him, even if you think Kolek's in over his head at MU, those guys who are better than him at the very least should've been able to get a low major full ride.  If they had any sense in them, they'd pick out a low major with great academics and get a free degree there rather than paying $60K/year to be a regular student at Marquette.

Kolek isn't really at fault.  The problem is we don't have anyone better than him behind him.  Or at least didn't last year.  That's why I've consistently thought that if we're going to be a Tournament team, Sean Jones is going to need to be our best guard.  Because from what I saw last year, our guards aren't even close to good enough to have us competing at the top half of the Big East.

Sounds like someone never got on the main court at the rec center.

[lawdog77]

your cynicism demonstrates your ignorance.

And your seeming inability to know how talented one has to be to start at a high major confounds me.

[brewcity77]

So a guy plays out of position, leads the Big East in Assist Rate, and we're down on him? I guess that's one way of looking at it.

Personally, I'm here for the aforementioned Tyler Kolek "F You" tour that I fully believe is coming.

[wadesworld]

So a guy plays out of position, leads the Big East in Assist Rate, and we're down on him? I guess that's one way of looking at it.

Personally, I'm here for the aforementioned Tyler Kolek "F You" tour that I fully believe is coming.

The problem would be his best attribute, by a humongous margin, is what the "out of position" position is asked to do for your team.  So if you put him "in position," he's now doing what he absolutely stunk at last year and is no longer doing what he did well last year.

[brewcity77]

The problem would be his best attribute, by a humongous margin, is what the "out of position" position is asked to do for your team.  So if you put him "in position," he's now doing what he absolutely stunk at last year and is no longer doing what he did well last year.

He had a dreadful shooting start (10/50, 20% in November/December non-con play). There's no arguing that. But he shot an acceptable 33.3% in conference play, which included going 18/35 (51.4%) on catch-and-shoot situations. He also shot well at GMU (35.9% from three overall, 37.2% in conference play) so the shooting ability is there, it's just a matter of being put in better situations and being more comfortable. I have confidence both in the staff figuring out how to do that and Kolek (who has earned rave reviews all summer) delivering on a scoring potential that I firmly believe is much higher than what he produced last year.

[Hards Alumni]

Sounds like someone never got on the main court at the rec center.

It's posts like this that make scoop so entertaining.

[cheebs09]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this isn't a Rico-style troll (at a much lower quality) and assume people are underestimating the level of D1 defenses.

Maybe the best Rec Leaguer could shoot 30% standing still and wide open, but those shots are going to be few and far between. I also think we underestimate how good of shooters college players are. They don't miss much in warm ups.

[The Sultan]

I have played pick up against a guy who was a bench warmer at a low major school before transferring to NAIA. He was ten years out of college and just dominated the floor. Also played with an end of the bench guy on Pitino's Providence F4 team who was breathtakingly good.

I don't think people have a clue how good these guys are.

[Uncle Rico]

I have played pick up against a guy who was a bench warmer at a low major school before transferring to NAIA. He was ten years out of college and just dominated the floor. Also played with an end of the bench guy on Pitino's Providence F4 team who was breathtakingly good.

I don't think people have a clue how good these guys are.

I've seen the Marquette student section.  Those kids would win the Big Ten

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

your cynicism demonstrates your ignorance.

Ever watched the end of a blowout game when the walk ons get subbed in? Ever notice that even though the other team isn't trying and often has their walk ons and scrubs in, they still struggle to score? Those walk ons are better than the vast majority of kids at the rec center.

[panda]

I have played pick up against a guy who was a bench warmer at a low major school before transferring to NAIA. He was ten years out of college and just dominated the floor. Also played with an end of the bench guy on Pitino's Providence F4 team who was breathtakingly good.

I don't think people have a clue how good these guys are.

Maybe you're just not very good...

[The Sultan]

Maybe you're just not very good...

Not anymore.

[Pakuni]

He had a dreadful shooting start (10/50, 20% in November/December non-con play). There's no arguing that. But he shot an acceptable 33.3% in conference play, which included going 18/35 (51.4%) on catch-and-shoot situations. He also shot well at GMU (35.9% from three overall, 37.2% in conference play) so the shooting ability is there, it's just a matter of being put in better situations and being more comfortable. I have confidence both in the staff figuring out how to do that and Kolek (who has earned rave reviews all summer) delivering on a scoring potential that I firmly believe is much higher than what he produced last year.

Who knows what we'll get from Kolek next season - hoping for the best, obviously - but the same people behind the rave reviews all summer told us he was the best shooter on the team last summer. So, we may want to take a wait-and-see attitude with that.
As for his acceptable 33.3% ... if getting to "acceptable" requires eliminating 40% of the games and 45% of his three-point attempts, is it really acceptable? Or is it cherry picking? It's one thing to suggest a player's numbers were dinged by a few bad games, but 40% of the season isn't exactly outlier territory.

What he did in the A10 doesn't really matter. As pointed out in this here thread, the level of competition matters.

[brewcity77]

Who knows what we'll get from Kolek next season - hoping for the best, obviously - but the same people behind the rave reviews all summer told us he was the best shooter on the team last summer. So, we may want to take a wait-and-see attitude with that.
As for his acceptable 33.3% ... if getting to "acceptable" requires eliminating 40% of the games and 45% of his three-point attempts, is it really acceptable? Or is it cherry picking? It's one thing to suggest a player's numbers were dinged by a few bad games, but 40% of the season isn't exactly outlier territory.

What he did in the A10 doesn't really matter. As pointed out in this here thread, the level of competition matters.

I don't think it's cherry picking when you are looking at 60% of the games running consecutively. If I said "in his 20 best games he did X" that would be different. It's just looking at what he did for the bulk of the season against the toughest competition.

[tower912]

He shot over 50% on catch and shoot 3s in conference.   He shot 14% off the dribble.  The problem is known and he has had an offseason to work on it.

Coach Smart is betting on culture and player development.  That is the direction for the foreseeable future.

[Newsdreams]

I've seen the Marquette student section.  Those kids would win the Big Ten

Wrong, NC material

[brewcity77]

He shot over 50% on catch and shoot 3s in conference.   He shot 14% off the dribble.  The problem is known and he has had an offseason to work on it.

To me, that felt like one of the most automatic things last season once conference play got up and rolling. If someone passed to Kolek and he was set, he was going to make it. If he pulled up off the dribble, it was gonna be ugly. The one exception I remember was the home game against 'Nova, when Shaka told him not to be an a**hole after arguing with the ref over a call. TK proceeded to make a steal, go coast-to-coast for a layup, and said to Shaka "Can I be an a**hole now?" On the next possession, he hit a three off the dribble and said "What about now?"

I know he made a couple others off the dribble, but that's the only one I remember vividly.

[Dr. Blackheart]

I have played pick up against a guy who was a bench warmer at a low major school before transferring to NAIA. He was ten years out of college and just dominated the floor. Also played with an end of the bench guy on Pitino's Providence F4 team who was breathtakingly good.

I don't think people have a clue how good these guys are.

I dunked at the Helfaer once.

[tower912]

I played pick up games in my 20's with some DII guys and one MAC bench warmer.  I played Macker against D2 and D3 guys.    Nobody is walking out of the MU student section and shooting 30% from 3 in the Big East.