"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

Friday, December 09, 2005

UW @ Madison Awaits Marquette

Alert, Alert! Garry Howard decided to run two articles on the upcoming UW-MU game! Well, I sure hope this means the MJS is not depriving local readers of generic AP wire coverage to fill the hallowed pages of his sports section.

Rosiak takes a look at what the Big East's best trio of freshmen can expect in their first tilt with UW-Madison. Madison native Wesley Matthews offers that "The Marquette-Wisconsin rivalry has been going on for a long time and when you’re a part of Marquette, you know who your rivals are, and Wisconsin is definitely one of them. They’re just an hour away," Matthews said. "It’s going to be fun for us to play, it’s going to be fun for the fans to watch. It’s going to be a good game: two teams going at it, trying to win."

Meanwhile Mark Stewart fawns over Alando Tucker here. Stewart notes that MU had success against UW-Madison's best player last season:


Crean had the answer for Tucker last season, when he used 6-10 Chris Grimm against him. Tucker went 26 minutes without scoring in the Golden Eagles' 63-54 victory and scored nine of his 13 points during the final 6 minutes, when the Badgers were playing catch-up.

But it's hard to say if such a strategy would work this season. Tucker has been stronger with the ball and though he still gets a lot done in the paint, he is more apt to get there with his dribble than in past years.




The Badger Herald opines that "it will not only be the first 'big' home game of the season, but for some of Wisconsin’s freshmen, it will be their first hyped-up Kohl Center contest ever." How can that be true of some of the freshmen but not all of the freshmen given the first clause in that sentence? I'm just asking.

By the way, congratluations to Coach Tom Crean who is now the 3rd all-time winningest coach in MU history. Per Rosiak,
Crean, who is 127-67 in his seventh year, had been tied with Hank Raymonds (126-50 from 1977-’83) and now trails Bill Chandler (193-198 from 1930-’51) and Al McGuire (295-80 from 1964-’77).


INFOGRAPHIC
Recent badger roadkill statistics indicate more work needs to be done by a concerned citizenry. Vermin, specifically badgers, remain a clear and present danger.

1 comment:

Chris said...

Per your question regarding the Badger Herald article describing this game as the first big Kohl Center event for "some" of the freshmen, perhaps the author is taking into account last year's high school championship game, in which Marcus Landry was a participant. Then the original clause would make more sense.

Enjoy the game tomorrow! I'm thinking it will be a good one...