"My rule was I wouldn't recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house.
That's not my world. My world was a cracked sidewalk." —Al McGuire

Saturday, December 03, 2011

PG out for visit to #7 Wisconsin? No problem for MU freshmen

DJO was dominant on offense and Vander Blue on defense, but the story today was that someone forgot to tell Marquette’s three freshman that when you visit a top 10 opponent, you have less than a 7 percent chance of winning. The odds get a lot worse when your starting point guard can’t play, and even worse when you can't go for steals after being whistled for four fouls in the first five minutes against the team that is the WORST team in the country at drawing fouls.

In the past decade, Marquette was just above the national average – going 1-11 when facing a Top 10 team on the road (based on www.kenpom) until upsetting UConn last year. Now Marquette has done it twice in a row – and the freshman were a big part of it.




vs. Top 10 on roadRnkDaySeasonResultMUOpp
Wisconsin3Sat Dec 32012W6154
Connecticut10Thu Feb 242011W7467
Pittsburgh4Sat Jan 82011L8189
Syracuse4Sat Jan 232010L7176
West Virginia8Tue Dec 292010L6263
Wisconsin9Sat Dec 122010L6372
Pittsburgh5Wed Mar 42009L7590
Louisville4Sun Mar 12009L5862
Louisville6Thu Jan 172008L5171
Wisconsin5Sat Dec 82008W8176
Georgetown5Sat Feb 102007L5876
Villanova7Sat Feb 42006L6772
Louisville5Wed Jan 262005L5299
Wisconsin5Sat Dec 202004L5963
Average score    6574


Marquette's showings have been so impressive that Sagarin's predictor, which had MU as a 7-point underdog today, will most likely show Marquette as the favorite in EVERY GAME the rest of the season. Obviously they will not win every game, because if you have an 80% chance to win 10 games in a row, you usually go 8-2, but this is a new level never achieved by MU before.

And for the freshman:

Derrick Wilson started in front of the suspended Junior Cadougan, played 20 minutes without a turnover, meaning the former football star now has 2 turnovers in 102 minutes. When All-American candidate Jordan Taylor tried to drive to cut into Marquette’s 41-33 lead with 13:29 to go, Wilson took a charge in the open court to send Taylor to the bench with his 4th foul.

With Jae Crowder in foul trouble, Todd Mayo was able to get in 20 minutes. When Wisconsin cut it to 41-40, Mayo drove, was cut off by Badger big men, and kissed a lay-up off the top of the glass. When Wisconsin was forced to press with 20 seconds left, Taylor tried to guard Mayo, but Mayo left him in the dust for a long in-bound pass and two-handed monster jam to make it 61-51 with 14 points from Mayo – GAME OVER. A meaningless three-pointer by Wisconsin at the end made the score sound respectable for a team that had only lost AT UNC by 3 points – indicating they likely would have beaten the Tar Heels in Madison (the average point swing from home to away is 8 points).

Juan Anderson, the third freshman, had only played 7 minutes all year, but with only 10 Warriors suited up he went in for 7 more eminutes and grabbed 5 rebounds to help MU DOMINATE the boards 41-28 in a reversal of last year.

If Wisconsin had not hit the final meaningless three-pointer, than the win would have marked the third time THIS SEASON that Marquette has had one of the Top 10 performance of the DECADE. As posted earlier, a Game Score of more than 100 means that the team likely could have beaten anyone in the country that night – and MU has done that 3 times in 7 games this year after doing it just 20 times in more than 200 games starting with the Final Four team.

Here are the top 20 performances of the decade based on a simplified game version of the Sagarin predictor model (Margin of victory, plus or minus 4 for home venue, plus opponent’s predictor value):

Top 20 Marquette performances in past decade based on Game Score Method:




RnkOpponentDateYearMarOppVenGame Score
1Mount St. Mary'sFri Nov 1120125466-4116
2Oklahoma St.Tue Nov 20200830820112
3DetroitTue Nov 1420074273-4111
4Northern IowaFri Nov 28200930790109
5St. John'sWed Mar 11200929764109
6KentuckySat Mar 29200314940108
7West VirginiaSat Jan 1020092290-4108
8CincinnatiSun Jan 420093478-4108
9MississippiSun Nov 20201230780108
10Notre DameMon Jan 1020112289-4107
11Notre DameSat Jan 1220082685-4107
12Seton HallTue Feb 12200825774106
13ProvidenceThu Jan 320082980-4105
14South FloridaSat Jan 1120033376-4105
15Coppin St.Fri Dec 2120084762-4105
16WisconsinSat Dec 320127934104
17ProvidenceSun Jan 1720103078-4104
18Wisconsin MilwaukeeFri Nov 3020083573-4104
19ConnecticutTue Jan 320061591-4102
20LouisvilleMon Jan 1520079894102

3 comments:

Jaden Daly said...

Great work once again...I really like all these nuggets. I just wish I knew how to calculate stats like this...

Beaver said...

Glorious. Being married to a UW alum, I find no greater joy than beating the Badgers.

I've been reading blog posts all week about how UW is going to thrash MU. The lack of respect is annoying, and our win was a statement.

GO WARRIORS!! Final Four.

JohnPudner said...

Thanks both! If everyone did their own stats, noone would read our stuff :-)

As for your spouse, Jordan Taylor still tweeted that Marquette still was cr** after the game, but Jeff Sagarin's new ratings says MU is actually the #1 team in the country after the win - so I'd go with Sagarin.

Really appreciate you reading.