The Gentlemen come to town

After a week away from competitive action the Marquette Warriors (7-3) host the Centenary Gentlemen (0-11) this afternoon at the Bradley Center. The disappointing home loss to Bucky has been lingering for a week and the over-matched Gents will provide little resistance this afternoon. Centenary stinks.

Heading into the eleventh game of the season it's time to start The DJO Watch in earnest. The junior guard, widely expected to emerge as one of the Big East's top guards, has regressed this season hitting on just 38% of his shots from the field and an abominable 27% from three-point range. If not for one scintillating performance against UWM (29 points on 10-14 shooting, 5-7 from deep) those figures would be far worse and perhaps more representative of just how much he's struggled so far this season.

As a sophomore the Raleigh native connected on 45% of his field goals and 47% of his three-point attempts. Johnson-Odom is coming off his worst game of the season, hitting just one of his nine attempts in the home loss to Wisconsin. While a strong performance against Centenary won't be enough to signal a turnaround, coach Buzz Williams needs the talented guard to raise his level of play quickly.

Tipoff is scheduled for 1pm Marquette Standard Time. The game will be broadcast on Sports32.

• Here are the Marquette Game Notes
• Beat reporter Todd Rosiak completed a Q/A with readers yesterday -- must. read.
• Vander Blue was the Big East Rookie of the Week last week.
• Marquette is adding lacrosse.
• The Big East/SEC Challenge will be revamped for next season --- and MU still gets that game with LSU.

If you have 30 minutes, enjoy the final episode of Marquette Basketball - Revealed.

Un De Feat Ed!

Marquette started the 2009-10 campaign with a 85-62 thumping of Centenary. Jimmy Butler was superlative with a double double, 27 & 13.

Quick hits:

Rosiak
Box Score

Post-Game Presser:

Game Day is Back

Heck yeah... Game Day is back as Marquette takes on Centenary tonight at (checks sweet wallpaper) 7:30 pm.

Here is the official release from Marquette, including their Game Notes. In addition, at the link, they have a video clip of Buzz previewing the game. (We love the Athletic Department upping the game this year with all the video content). If you've not bought tickets yet, all tickets are half-price... so go watch the game.



Speaking of upping the ante, Marquette is initiating Live Blogging for this game. Here is the direct link. It'll be interesting to see how this goes.

Rosiak also has his preview of Centenary. In addition, he checks in today with a post on Musical Lineups? Basically, Buzz admits he still doesn't have a feel for who and what combinations will be most productive. Not surprising.

The Marquette Superfans have also released their Gold Mine newsletter for today's game. And speaking of super fans, take a look at these Marquette fans and get ready for game time.

If you want to see the world through Centenary's eyes, take a look at their Cents Basketball website, as well as an article from the Shreveport Times.

That's it (so far) for game day information. However, Marquette target Tarik Black is saying he hopes to make a decision in the early signing period. Black had been rumored to wait until the Spring. This kid can play ball, and would be a great complement to Jones and Blue.

Finally, go watch this sick dunk from Wade last night.

Marquette wades into Non-Conference Schedule Bit by Bit

UPDATED

Evidently, the reason to release the schedule one day at a time is to drive additional traffic to the www.gomarquette.com website. In truth, the folks at Marquette do a pretty good job with their online content. Their video clips are great, so visit the website and click around.

That said, I still think releasing the schedule one day at a time has limited upside and more downside.

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I've always been a fan of ripping the band-aid off right away instead of the slow pull. I like to jump straight into the pool instead of wading in slowly. Basically, it's my preference to get the unpleasantness over with as quickly as possible. And let's face it. Almost always, the non-conference schedule is some level of unpleasantness. This portion of the schedule is not the reason that people buy season tickets. In fact, griping about the non-conference schedule is somewhat of an annual ritual amongst Marquette fans.

Therefore, I found it weird (at best) that Marquette has insisted on releasing the schedule one game at a time. Today's announcement is that Marquette is going to open up the season with...

CENTENARY! YES!

I guess the logic is that we get an entire day to focus on each opponent. Maybe this gives each team on the schedule an opportunity for a further analysis. Perhaps Centenary gets their time in the sun. Who knows? Maybe the non-conference schedule is a treat to be savored slowly and enjoyed, instead of unpleasantness and pain. Neat... their nickname is the Gents.

Or, we can find out that Centenary was 8-23 last season in the Summit League, with a Pomeroy Rating of 246. We could also do a little digging, and find out that their best Pomeroy Rating was back in 2004, at 181. Since then, they've been 316, 317, 248, and 279. Instead of being a savory morsel, Centenary is truly just another bad team Marquette will play because the economics dictate it. Now, for an entire day for two weeks, we get to focus on each portion of the non-conference schedule being bad.

I appreciate the desire of Marquette, or any organization, to experiment. In general, their coverage is outstanding (like last year's video clips). But a good chunk of the schedule is already out there in draft format on the Wiki. Not to mention that Wisconsin has already posted their schedule (by the way, we play them on Dec. 12th). We even provided more info a few weeks ago. Why not just release the whole thing all at once? Is there that much suspense to find out what Friday or Saturday in December we play Seattle?

Like a ritual of late summer, Marquette releases the non-conference schedule, and then the Internet breaks out with complaints. It usually goes as follows:

• Defender - all major programs play some number of crap teams for non-conference schedules
  
• Season Ticket Holder - yeah, but I'm the one shelling out $XXXX(X?) to watch this junk
• Rinse and repeat as necessary.

One exception to griping was last year, when the comments weren't actually that bad. I attribute this mostly because MU had added another tough opponent in NC State. That was a surprise last year but isn't this year. Plus, the schedule was released and then we moved on. Now, get ready for a solid two weeks (at least) of replaying the above complaints about the non-conference schedule. Maybe tomorrow we can find out when MU plays Presbyterian. Yay?