LEADERSHIP

[MikeyT42]

we can point fingers and we can blame refs but what this team needs is ...

LEADERSHIP. vocal leadership at that.

Today i watched the huddles during timeouts and inbetween whistles to see who was stepping up and taking intiative. What I saw was 2 guys always stepping up and encouraging and talking. Those two were McNeal and Cubillan. David was always being vocal after shooting fouls. Thats a definite positive for Marquette. I also saw McNeal toward the end of the game trying to pump up his teammates to get them to get a defensive stop.

McNeal was very vocal when he went on his scoring spree under 3 minutes in the game.

I think there needs to be more vocal leadership on this team. Someone needs to step up and hold teammates accountable for their mistakes and their mental errors. The past 3 years leadership wasn't something MU teams needed to worry about. It came from Travis and Steve without question.

[MU71]

When you have one junior and no seniors who entered the program as freshmen you won't have much leadership.  You get your leaders from your upper class.  Unfortunately they all left.

[muhoosier260]

i'm torn about mcneal. he has flashes of brilliance, i.e. his sick strip at halfcourt, with the dunk finish, all coming after another critical marquette miss on offense. however, his turnovers and dumb dumb dumb fouls just even it out. he tries to do too much on offense and defense. he shoots too much from teh outside on O and tries too often to block shots on defense.
something i really like about mcneal is how he plays with so much emotion, you can tell he really gets pissed off when he messes up, and good defensive players absolutely necessarily must play with grit and emotion, which he does well. somethign he has to be aware of is that he loses control of his emotions sometimes, and often thats why he commits the dumb fouls, because he gets overhyped and worked up and just has too much energy on D.

[HoopDreams]

We have no leader on this team and it shows..currently, we trully lack as a team a desire to play together and make the other players on the court better.

[tower912]

This is where the loss of the entire Mason, Bell, Matthews, Christian class hurts.  Of course, none of those guys were going to be leaders.   I have been beaten up for saying this before, but Novak was the leader last year.   The glue, the go to guy.   Grimm and Chapman helped, too.   This year, who is the glue?   Who is the coach on the floor?   Who is the go to guy?   Expecting sophomores to be the leaders is a lot to ask.   Particularly if they aren't completely focused on the team.

[rocky_warrior]

Expecting sophomores to be the leaders is a lot to ask.

I think this is part of the problem - something we need the Soph's to learn sooner than later.  We've often heard about so "sophomore slump" which in a large part is probably mental because they realize the expectations have been raised for them.  The sooner that they realize that they need to play within themselves, and get their teammates (all of the teammates - not just the three guards) involved in games - the better our season will be.

[WashDCWarrior]

Good NCAA teams are typically young.  Your top programs send kids to the NBA after 1, 2, maybe 3 years.  The ones who stay 4 aren't as good players as those who leave early.  While being the best player doesn't make you a leader, it does help a lot.  Senior leadership is a luxury nowadays that few top-notch programs get.  There is no reason why DJ, McNeal, and Matthews can't step up and be the true leaders of this team.  They need to.