Nothing but ❤️

[rocky_warrior]

you're not wrong Rocky.

Aha!  The truth!

[Scoop Snoop]

Aha!  The truth!

Whatever makes you happy makes me happy Rocky. 

[Juan Anderson's Mixtape]

Marquette had to tone down the defensive aggressiveness with the short bench.  Couldn't afford foul trouble.

Didn't challenge shots quite as aggressively or body up on the perimeter, especially in the first half.  Improved in the 2nd half, but ran out of gas.

Players not used to playing those minutes were out.  Plus, they had to expend more energy than normal on offense.  Kolek and Oso setup normally so much.  Yesterday, Kam, Jop, and Stevie had to work extra hard as Oso scorers.

Team left it all on the floor.

[Elonsmusk]

If you are only looking at the final score to grade the defense you either did not watch the game or are looking for a negative. The D outperformed for 36 minutes and looked awfully good to me.

Comparing Creighton playing 7 guys to MU playing 7 guys actually made me laugh. It really does not even deserve to be discussed.

To pile on that post would be like piling on to the Don Kojis post yesterday. It is best just to move on and reread tower's posts to get back to reality.

Good post Goose.  Creighton has two 23 year old players, playing their 5th year of college ball - Farabello and Schiermen.  Ashworth is a Senior.  Kalkbrenner is a senior.  Trey Alexander a Junior.

Marquette rolled out Junior, Junior, Junior, Sophomore, Sophomore starting lineup.  Of that lineup, just one guy is over 6'7" and 220 lbs and that's Gold, who had no backup, playing against a potential All American big who weighs in at 270.  Our bench consisted of two freshmen.

Pretty easy to see why we were a bit worn down by the end.  McDermott said both teams were tired, but he felt MU may have been a bit more tired.

I did feel Shaka erred by not using a few more timeouts to get his guys some rest, but also feel he felt that would benefit Kalkbrenner more than our guys.

[MU82]

Sure, but still had 7 guys going.  Same as Creighton.

When I used to coach my son's youth teams, we had a few instances when only 5 or 6 players showed up for a game. And I'd say, "That's OK ... as long as it's the right 5 or 6 players."

I'm thinking Marquette's short bench would have been less of an issue if we had a healthy Oso and Kolek in place of, say, Gold and Norman.

And rocky, how do you think MU's defense would have looked if we were at full strength and Creighton was missing 2 of Scheierman, Alexander and Kalkbrenner?

To quote Larry David ... pretty, pretty good.

[rocky_warrior]

And rocky, how do you think MU's defense would have looked if we were at full strength and Creighton was missing 2 of Scheierman, Alexander and Kalkbrenner?

I think I was pretty clear I was evaluating "next years team".  And by and large I praised them for keeping up.  They'll need to work on their D.  I'm confident Shaka agrees.

I get the reaction is always to defend any negative stats with excuses, but y'all need to check yourselves.

[Elonsmusk]

I think I was pretty clear I was evaluating "next years team".  And by and large I praised them for keeping up.  They'll need to work on their D.  I'm confident Shaka agrees.

I get the reaction is always to defend any negative stats with excuses, but y'all need to check yourselves.

Help me understand why for the better of 7 years you made excuses for Wojo, but since Shaka has arrived you've largely tried to find all the negatives?  It's weird.

[MU82]

I think I was pretty clear I was evaluating "next years team".  And by and large I praised them for keeping up.  They'll need to work on their D.  I'm confident Shaka agrees.

I get the reaction is always to defend any negative stats with excuses, but y'all need to check yourselves.

I somehow missed the reference to next season, so 1000 pardons.

And yes, there are excuses ... but there also are facts. Missing the 2 stars of the team isn't the same kind of "excuse" as "we couldn't get a call from the refs." It's simply a fact, and to pretend otherwise (not accusing you of doing that) is ignoring important context.

[Goose]

Elon

I think your post answered your own question.

82
You are too smart of a basketball guy to engage in foolish conversations.

[rocky_warrior]

No pardons required, I can be harsh and opinionated too.

I had many doubts about winning the game with Oso and Kolek.  Without them (and possibly with a couple others feeling ill), I was happy with the performance.

I'm not happy with the tired legs defense for the last part of the game.  If that was the reason, it was a poor coaching choice by Shaka to have them running around as they were the first 36 min.

I'll let you have the final word, rocky. Have a good one.

That's no fun!  I edited this post so your reply is still the "final", hah.

[MU82]

No pardons required, I can be harsh and opinionated too.

I had many doubts about winning the game with Oso and Kolek.  Without them (and possibly with a couple others feeling ill), I was happy with the performance.

I'm not happy with the tired legs defense for the last part of the game.  If that was the reason, it was a poor coaching choice by Shaka to have them running around as they were the first 36 min.

I'll let you have the final word, rocky. Have a good one.

[GoFastAndWin]

Our esteemed Athletic Director used some colorful language to describe the team's efforts today:

https://twitter.com/mikebroeker/status/1764041126229532999

Did Scholl retire or something?

[warriorchick]

Did Scholl retire or something?

Okay, Deputy Athletic Director.

[Newsdreams]

If you are only looking at the final score to grade the defense you either did not watch the game or are looking for a negative. The D outperformed for 36 minutes and looked awfully good to me.

Comparing Creighton playing 7 guys to MU playing 7 guys actually made me laugh. It really does not even deserve to be discussed.

To pile on that post would be like piling on to the Don Kojis post yesterday. It is best just to move on and reread tower's posts to get back to reality.

Key stat to me, only turned them over 7 times, same amount of TOs MU had. MU lives off TOs, not good for MU when that happens.

[junglecat022]

Did Scholl retire or something?

Will be retiring in 1-2 years. Broeker is next man up.

[wadesworld]

Can someone smarter than me provide some insight on possessions in yesterday's game?  I thought Marquette/Shaka actually did take the air out of the ball quite a bit more, especially when you could sense the team was gassed.

Was it a high possession game for Marquette games?  For Creighton games?  How did our length of possessions compare to the season average?

Also, there aren't a ton of timeouts for coaches to use in college basketball anymore.  I think it used to be at 6 not that long ago, but I think it's down to 4, of which you need to take at least 1 on the first half or you lose it.

I'm guessing Shaka and staff were trying to be as strategic as possible with their timeouts.  Balance fatigue with momentum, especially with a group of guys who haven't played the roles they were in yesterday all that much.  So when you're keeping it close, maybe Shaka and staff wanted to hang onto them until things looked like they may get out of hand.  Like when they hit back to back 3s, one coming after a bad turnover.

[The Thing]

I don't want to come off as negative because I did love the effort in that game but I did notice that a lot of Creighton's made threes were pretty much uncontested...especially in the last 4 mins. I am going to attribute this to fatigue but that was a rough stretch.

[Lennys Tap]

Key stat to me, only turned them over 7 times, same amount of TOs MU had. MU lives off TOs, not good for MU when that happens.

When Gold, Stevie, Kam and Jop were forced to play more minutes than usual and do more on the offensive end than usual it affects how you play defense. We couldn't pressure them as much as usual, especially in the 2nd half.

Not really complicated, but it apparently escapes some here.

[Goose]

Lenny

Spot on. The offense took a lot of effort to get the ball in the hoop. Jop, Stevie and Kam used up a lot of energy to score mostly difficult baskets instead of the quick, pass oriented offense we usual see from MU.

Our offense actually wore our defense down and such is life. They definitely need to work on better ball movement for next season to n the offensive side of the ball.

I would add that I am more concerned about the effort needed to score than I am about the defense. We have been spoiled by a very smooth offense for the past two years and it will look different without TK.

[CTWarrior]

Kolek out, Oso out, Kam favoring an ankle very early in the game and later as well, Tre puking and then coming back in briefly and our guys were down just a few points late. I'm not going to go with the moral victory theme, but the toughness shown in this game was absolutely phenomenal. SO proud of our team.

Bitch if you want about the missed 3's, but I'm not willing to join anyone criticizing the team in any way today.

The weird thing is that this game has made me more optimistic about our chances for a natty.

If Kolek is healthy and Kam's ankle is not an issue, me too.  The biggest thing is that Kam is back!  If healthy, we're going to be a tough out.

[DoctorV]

Lenny

Spot on. The offense took a lot of effort to get the ball in the hoop. Jop, Stevie and Kam used up a lot of energy to score mostly difficult baskets instead of the quick, pass oriented offense we usual see from MU.

Our offense actually wore our defense down and such is life. They definitely need to work on better ball movement for next season to n the offensive side of the ball.

I would add that I am more concerned about the effort needed to score than I am about the defense. We have been spoiled by a very smooth offense for the past two years and it will look different without TK.

Excellent point. Everything was difficult and required a lot of energy on the offensive end, a ton of iso ball.

On several occasions Jop had to work his arse off just to get a shot off and then looked like he could barely make it back to the other end. Stevie and Kam had to work hard for their shots too, Kam just makes it look smoother.

That was one of my biggest disappointments with Tre on Saturday-
Not the missed shots, those will happen.
I was much more disappointed that as a backup pg he's supposed to come in and control the pace, command the floor, get others involved and make their lives easier on the offensive end, and he didn't do that.
He's shown flashes of ability to defend well, be in the right spot, and attack off the dribble with adequate finishing, but his ability to run the point and make the right pass, get others involved, and command the game have left much to be desired so far.

[jesmu84]

Watched in the arena.

The offense was markedly different yesterday. Instead of the pick and roll, it was more about trying to get favorable one on one matchups and attack individually. It worked better than I anticipated. But it explains the lack of assists.

Has there been anymore information on the apparent illness running through the team? Obviously Oso was ill. I swear Tre was puking during the game. Ross played less than I anticipated.

[tower912]

Tre puking was reported by Ben Steele.   

[MU82]

That was one of my biggest disappointments with Tre on Saturday-
Not the missed shots, those will happen.
I was much more disappointed that as a backup pg he's supposed to come in and control the pace, command the floor, get others involved and make their lives easier on the offensive end, and he didn't do that.
He's shown flashes of ability to defend well, be in the right spot, and attack off the dribble with adequate finishing, but his ability to run the point and make the right pass, get others involved, and command the game have left much to be desired so far.

I hear what you're saying and I agree with some of it, but I try to make myself remember that Norman has had very few in-game, non-garbage-time reps as a college PG. It's the equivalent of a barely-used freshman QB being thrown into big games.

He handled it well against Xavier, then struggled against a superior Creighton team. None of that was particularly surprising, really - and I'm not even factoring in that Tre might have been quite ill Saturday. I remember several occasions back in 2021-22 when Shaka had to bench Kolek - and Kolek was a sophomore with a good amount of PG experience. It's a difficult position to play correctly.

Tre might end up being a very good Big East PG, or he might never become one. I sure don't know yet. What I do know is that, given the ability of this coaching staff to develop players, if he can be a good PG, we'll see it by the time conference play gets going next season.

[DoctorV]

Good points 82.
Definitely haven't lost faith in him, I think he will be a winner.

It's also better to see a kid "get it" on the defensive side and with regards to positioning and apparent maturity level, as well as have the ability to drive by dudes and score at the rim under control, than it is to not have those skills and just be a game manager that passes it around and doesn't turn it over imo.

That forced contested 3 early in the clock will always get you in Shaka's bench though, especially when you're pitching an 0'fer. Shades of Kam shooting from the logo haha