Louisville Rivalry Continues in the Garden

Just as we tweeted last night, we are dying to play Louisville again. Without putting too fine a point on it, the last time we played Louisville was an abomination. Call it what you want... choke job, epic loss, or my personal favorite (The Meltdown), there's really no excuse for blowing that lead. But we're not here to talk about that past.

With a different perspective, it's just another game in a series that is a phenomenal rivalry. Just add the Meltdown to the list. Is it really all that much worse than losing on Senior Night in Double OT? Or Jerry #$%^ Smith? Or Reece @#$% Gaines? Of course it isn't. And yet, that complete list also includes DWade rallying the team in the FF season. It includes Hutch the Clutch's three to win, Wardle in 2OT, and Wardle. It includes Dameon Mason's game winner and Novak hitting approximately 18 threes (maybe a rounding error) on the road. Oh yeah... and don't forget Buzz walking it out.

For every stomach punch we get, Louisville has gotten their own bloody nose. So bring it on. These games are so unpredictable and back and forth (our record vs UL is 12-14 in the modern era), no one really knows how things will go tonight.

Is the offense going to be good enough?

Remember this number: 1. If Marquette scores over one point per possession, we've got a good shot to win. Louisville brings a great defense to this matchup (#2 in the BE) and has only allowed an opponent to score over 1.00 ppp ten times. Six of their eight losses came from this group. Meanwhile, Marquette has averaged 1.10 ppp in conference, and has only been below one point per possession seven times (six losses). Our first matchup with UL? 0.91 ppp vs 0.92 ppp. Will Marquette protect the ball and take good shots tonight?

Which defense will show up?

Will it be the defense that allowed WVU to score 1.24 ppp in a half, or will it be the defense that held WVU to 0.79 ppp in a half? UL's offense isn't the greatest, but their strength is our weakness. Magic 8-Ball says "Reply hazy, try again".

Fatigue vs Rest

This question boils down to the following scenario. Marquette is playing their third game in three days, but they are more comfortable in the Garden. Louisville is rested but doesn't have two days of warmup games. What's going to have the bigger impact? Consider this... first, Marquette is really well conditioned. Second, teams with a double-bye last year went 1-3. Third, Marquette played the first game against UL with only eight minutes combined from Blue, Gardner, and EWill. Will Marquette have enough juice for this game?

We believe the answers to these questions (besides the defense) are favorable for Marquette. Louisville may be the better team, but only a little. We like Marquette's chances to continue playing basketball tomorrow night. After all, to quote last night's hero, Junior Cadougan, "to tell you the truth, I just didn't want to go home".

Media Updates

Media Updates from the Internets


Bracket Talk

• Jeff Goodman's Bubble Watch has us as a lock. Duh.
• Latest Bracketology has us as a seven seed
• Following up on Bracketology, Rosiak was able to dig in more on Lunardi's perspective about Marquette. good stuff, but Lunardi doesn't think we're a lock yet?
  
• The Bracket Matrix, which is absolutely my favorite, tracks us as a nine-seed
  

More on last night

• Rosiak also had more about last night's game on his blog
• Michael Hunt has his perspective on the game too
• The Marquette Tribune recaps the game too
• An interesting exchange happened last night at the game. While it was initially speculated to be Tim Maymon (yeah right), or even DJO's dad, NBE has the real story and it's even cooler.
  

Random

• The twitterverse is "buzzing" about the Warriors
• Casual Hoya has a guide to BET seeding
• Somewhat old, but SNY.tv is calling Hayward their BE POY... for now
  

NBA

• Wes Matthews is getting some extra notice. In this update on Wes Matthews, he makes NBA.com's list of rookie rankings
• Buzz for Coach of the Year? We agree with The SportsBank.net

More vids from Marquette



Homer interviews Father Wild



A behind the scenes look at the SJU road trip

Marquette Breaks Losing Streak - Gets Ready for Rubber Match

Yes, indeed. In their first game of the Big East Tournament today, Marquette defeated St. Johns by the score of 74-45. Honestly, the game wasn't even that close. The final five on the floor for the last three minutes? Frozena, Otule, Fulce, Butler, and Cubillan... that's how far ahead Marquette was. After two tough weeks, it felt good to see a winning product on the floor.

Here are some recaps, and then let's move on to the next game:

• GoMarquette.com has the AP recap, as well as photo gallery
• Rosiak has his recap of the game
• Right now, the ESPN recap is also from the AP, but they also have some video highlights
  

Moving on, Marquette will face off against Villanova for the rubber game of the season. Each team won their home matchup, with MU winning 79-72 in Milwaukee and Villanova crushed Marquette 102-84 in a game that was more noteworthy for McNeal breaking the all-time scoring record. It was also the team's worst defensive effort of the year.

Game time will be about 1:20 Milwaukee time on ESPN

At this point, you probably know all the names on Villanova's team. Feel free to refresh yourselves with their strengths and weaknesses from our last preview, or just check out their Pomeroy Scouting Report. (hint - Villanova is still good at just about everything). Oh yeah, they also have the BE Coach of the Year, and the league's Most Improved Player in Cunningham (cough).

Right now, we see a most likely scenario of only a 30% chance of victory and six point loss. What are the specific stats recommendations?

1. Prevent them from making shots (eFG% at 50% or less) - 50% is just under their average... but last game against us they hit an eFG% of 69%. We could just call this one "don't let them shoot 74% in the second half"
2. Force turnovers (Villanova TO% at 28% or higher) - This is highly unlikely, but every turnover that Villanova commits helps. Reggie Redding is actually sloppy with the ball (23%), and both Corey Fisher (19%) and Scottie Reynolds (19.2%) are about average. Good luck trying to turn over Cunningham (15.4%) or Corey Stokes (13.7%).
3. Protect the ball (TO% at 14% or lower) - This one isn't that crazy. For the season, MU was #9 in the country at taking care of the ball. Even without James, Marquette didn't have a turnover rate higher than 18% during the four game losing streak. Of course, today was a sloppy day, and I'm looking at you Jerel McNeal.
4. Crash the boards (OR% of 45% or higher) - This is about 17 offensive rebounds, or five more than average. It's also not that crazy, because Marquette was above that rate in their last two games.
   

That's really it for the keys. The next two recommendations (Villanova OR% below 19% and MU eFG% higher than 56%) are less sensitive than the first four. Still, if MU shoots the heck out of the ball it'll go a long way. In other news, water is wet, but think of the first four keys as way, way more important.

Media Updates

• I Bleed Blue and White previews today's action
• NovaNews with a blog preview
• VU hoops with another preview
• AP preview via Fox Sports
• Philly Daily News
• The Villanovan preview

Warriors take on the Redmen

After two weeks in a tailspin, the Marquette Warriors might have finally stumbled on a bit of good luck when St. John's upset the favored Georgetown Hoyas in the opening round of the BIG EAST Tournament. With that upset the Redmen, winners in three of their last four outings, advanced to play Marquette on Wednesday afternoon.

On instant message today, Rob was running numbers from his database for tomorrow's matchup and the first pull showed at 41% chance of winning tomorrow's game.......against Georgetown. After the Red Storm's spirited win against their historic BIG EAST rival the numbers show a 69% chance of victory and a 5-point win for MU on Wednesday.

Needless to say a bit of optimism is never a bad thing -- especially for a team trying desperately to end a four-game skid with the NCAA tournament looming.

Earlier this season Marquette rolled St John's 73-59 at the Bradley Center behind Jerel McNeal's 20 points. In our game preview for that tilt, we noted several key points about the Redmen. Most notably the Johnnies are a terrific offensive rebounding team and are solid at blocking shots, though they defend the three-pointer poorly (#303 in the nation). Also, the Redmen struggle to protect the ball and and are generally rotten from the field when they do manage to put up shots.

Specific Statistics Recommendations (In order of importance)

1. Stop SJU from making shots (eFG% of 49% or less). Season-average eFG for St. John's is 46.5%, so basically don't let them shoot much better than normal. Paris Horne, Sean Evans, and Rob Thomas are their most efficient scorers.
2. Make shots (MU eFG% of 54% or higher). Of course, as Pudner showed us earlier today Marquette's offense is not delivering as we'd hope sans James. Still, St. John's does not defend the three-pointer well.
3. Force turnovers. (TO Rate of 21% or higher for SJU). St. John's only turned the ball over 13 times against the Hoyas on Tuesday. Nevertheless, the Redmen are #228 in the nation at protecting the ball. Guard Malik Boothe coughs it up 30% of the time, and 6'8 sophomore Justin Burrell turns the ball over on 23% of all possessions. Marquette will want to avoid trying to strip Paris Horne (only 16%) or Rob Thomas (10%)
4. Prevent offensive rebounds (SJU OR% of 36% or less -- which is just below their season average of 38%). This should be about twelve offensive rebounds for the Johnnies. St. John's pulled down 12 ORBs today against Georgetown. Someone needs to keep a body on Sean Evans (OR% of 11.5%) and Rob Thomas (15.6%)
5. Grab offensive rebounds (MU OR% of 25% or higher - which is well below our season average of 35%). For the Johnnies, Sean Evans, DJ Kennedy, and Justin Burrell all do a pretty good job on the defensive boards. Will MU be able to exploit any of these matchups?

Unlike some other games, the stats recommendations for this game follow a fairly standard script. Don't let SJU go crazy on shots or overly disrupt our offensive flow, make sure to turn them over, and don't get crushed on the boards. One advantage for the Warriors on Wednesday should be fresh legs. Marquette has not played since Saturday. In today's win the St. John's starters played 181 of a possible 200 minutes. Guards Malik Boothe and Paris Horne each went the full 40 minutes while Sean Evans and D.J. Kennedy played 38.

Tipoff is scheduled for roughly 1:20pm CDT on Wednesday.

joint post between Rob and Tim

Gearing up for the Big East Tourney: News and Notes

With the BIG EAST Tournament kicking off this afternoon at The World's Most Famous Arena here are few media updates of note:

• First, congratulations to Jerel McNeal for being named a First Team All-American by FoxSports.
• Congratulations are also in order for McNeal and teammate Wesley Matthews for earning All-BIG EAST Honors. McNeal was named to the first team, Matthews to the second team.
  
• Sadly, Wesley Matthews was aced out of the league's Most Improved Player award by Villanova's Dante Cunningham despite eclipsing the Wildcat's year-to-year improvements in points, rebounds, assists, steals, FG%, FT% and 3-point FG%. Other than those categories Cunningham certainly showed more improvement than Matthews.
  
• The team over at The East Coast Bias completed a Blogger's Roundtable to recap the regular season and look ahead to the tournaments. I represented Cracked Sidewalks in the discussion which you can find here.

BIG EAST TOURNAMENT DETAILS
For Marquette alums in town for the BIG EAST Tournament, the Local Café West across from MSG is the Marquette bar for the week. MU will have dedicated space for pre/post-game gatherings. Additional details will be added to this URL throughout the week.

Later today Georgetown plays St. John's at MSG for the right to play Marquette tomorrow at 1pm CT. The Red Storm (15-16) play on their home court as the tournament's 13th seed while the Hoyas hit MSG ast the 12 seed.

Despite the four-game losing streak heading into post-season play, MU remains upbeat about the road ahead -- check out this AP feature on the team.

Marquette beats SJU 76-67

UPDATED

Dan Fitzgerald hit a career 20 points, and Mike Kinsella hit two 3-point bombs to lead Marquette over St. John's 76-67. With the win, Marquette improves to 24-8 on the season. Fitzgerald was moneyesq.

Kinsella picked up 5 rebounds and 3 assists in only 14 minutes. Gotta love how Mike has played his last two games in the Blue and Gold. I admit it, I've always had a bit of a man crush on Mike Kinsella, wishing he'd get more PT and take care of business. Now that he leads the team in 3-pointer% (80%), I imagine others will jump on the Kinsella bandwagon.

Dominic James had a horrific shooting night, going 2-14, and one of those was a layup in the first 2 seconds of the game. He dished out 8 assists and distributed the ball well.

Marquette faces Pitt for the 3rd time this year, Thursday night at 8pm.

With two of the Cracked Sidewalks team at the MSG tonight, you can expect some first hand reports of tonight's game and the MU events in New York.

Official MU Box Score
AP Recap
GoMarquette Recap - Notes
Paladium-Item Recap
NewsDay (NJ) Recap
Rosiak Recap - Rosiak Blog on Game
Chicago Sports Recap