Don't Hang Your Heads (Up your butts)

[dgies9156]

He took over a team that went 1-10 the previous season. So, he brought about massive improvement his first year while also building his culture.
Someone forgot to tell him you can't do both, I guess.

Comparing the Green Bay Packers to this year's Marquette team is absurd.

I might agree with you if Shaka had kept Dawson Garcia, DJ Carton and maybe Theo or Jamal Cain. When Lombardi came in, he had Paul Hourning, Ray Nitchkie, Boyd Dowler and a strong team that was poorly coached by ole Scooter. Lombardi came in and put the fear of God into the team and quickly made them live up to their talents.

Coach Shaka had to backfill much of last year's team. While I had high hopes for this year's team, I'm beginning to think I was way overly optimistic.

[Pakuni]

No playoffs. Vince-Scooter-Rhodes-Blackbourn failed!

The NFL playoffs back then consisted of the first place team in each division playing one game at end of the regular season.
I'm not sure it's the best comparison with a 68-team tournament, but run with it.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

You literally posted this three hours ago:
There have been plenty of posts that have said that we could finish in the top of the Big East.

Pakuni, I said that after your initial post. When you accused others of arguing against non-existent posters, you were literally arguing against a non-existent poster.

You literally posted this three hours ago:
Regardless of what you believe are reasonable expectations for the season, it's completely normal for people to come here after the team loses a winnable game (or any game) and talk about the reasons for the loss. That's part of the reason this place exists, I think.
I find it odd that some here continually try to shut down those discussions by saying (paraphrasing) those who thought this team should be doing better must be drunk, or just don't understand that Shaka's plan requires losing winnable games, or "Hey, did I mention for the 900th time this team is young?" or, worst of all, go cheer for another team.
It's OK, and entirely possible, to be on board with Shaka and still express some frustration with the recent results. I believe he has much higher expectations for this team than a lot of you do.

I think you are attributing a lot that may have happened with other posters in other threads to the posts here. I have not tried to "shut down" discussions about why we lost the recent games. I literally wrote in this thread before your post that Shaka was not immune from criticism and listed a bunch of things that I am concerned by. No one anywhere has ever said Shaka's plan required losing winnable games (again arguing against non-existent posters). I think very few people have said to go cheer for another team, and I'm certainly not one of them. And yep, I have mentioned that the team is young. And? Why are you trying to shut down that conversation point?

And yes, I did say people were drunk. That was specifically in response to Stretch's post. I just find it amusing that all objective data could point towards "this team isn't very good on paper" but some instinctively blame the coach for not "coaching them up". Blaming the coach's recruiting (the J5 special), I totally get and somewhat agree with.

[Pakuni]

Pakuni, I said that after your initial post. When you accused others of arguing against non-existent posters, you were literally arguing against a non-existent poster.

I think you misunderstand what I'm arguing against. Which could be entirely my fault.

I think you are attributing a lot that may have happened with other posters in other threads to the posts here.

I think you are taking my comments as being directed exclusively toward you, when they're not. Again, maybe that's my fault.

No one anywhere has ever said Shaka's plan required losing winnable games (again arguing against non-existent posters).

There have been numerous posts after tough losses expressing how such defeats are a necessary part of The Process.

[muwarrior69]

It's our poor shooting that really is hurting. If we made just a 3rd of the shots we missed we would have won a few of those games, not to state the obvious.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

I think you misunderstand what I'm arguing against. Which could be entirely my fault.

I think you are taking my comments as being directed exclusively toward you, when they're not. Again, maybe that's my fault.

Fair. Mea culpa for misunderstanding.

There have been numerous posts after tough losses expressing how such defeats are a necessary part of The Process.

If you say so. I've seen plenty of posts about how rebuilds take a while and inevitably involve losing but can't say I remember one about it being "necessary". Necessary to me means that we must lose in order to win later which makes no sense.

[Stretchdeltsig]

Strech

Lose a lot of credibility when you say little energy. There are a lot of issues to discuss, but energy would not be on high on 99.9% of basketball fans list.

Goose

You have to admit that the team, especially Lewis, were not bundles of energy in the first half Saturday.

[Goose]

Stretch

15 minutes out 14 games of little energy. I will agree on the 15 minutes and will take the energy of the rest of the season for the next decade.

[MU82]

There have been numerous posts after tough losses expressing how such defeats are a necessary part of The Process.

I don't know if I said they were "necessary." If I did, it was a poor choice of words. "Predictable" would have been a better word. Tough losses were a predictable part of the process -- a process that Shaka himself described 1,000 times as one that wouldn't bring "instant gratification" to Marquette fans.

Believe me, I far prefer the kind of game we got tonight being part of the process. I'll happily take a dozen more of those!

[willie warrior]

Scoop

We cannot change the past eight years of performance and can only look forward. IMO, we have shot the ball poorly and shot ourselves in the foot in three BE games, yet still had a chance to beat three good teams.
I am not a moral victory guy and pissed off that we lost, especially I have been saying for months the need to steal some games and they did not get that done the last three games. That being said, I wonder if all the naysayers believed going into those games that we would be in the game in last two minutes. If they can hang with the big boys with horrible shooting and rebounding that gives me optimism, they are on the right track.

This was a big win for Shaka and the program
Let's now see if Shaka can follow up with some sustaining momentum with a good win at GT and some beyond.Above .500 rest of year would help