We had a pretty good season and recruiting is going very well. All things are to be considered in this vote. Please, no criticisms of this play or that one. Look at the big picture.
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We had a pretty good season and recruiting is going very well. All things are to be considered in this vote. Please, no criticisms of this play or that one. Look at the big picture.
Many said the team looked tired. If so, why was that? Marquette did have a weekend bye on Feb. 16. Does the team go to hard in practice late in the year?
The starters maybe played too many minutes. Very disappointing guys like Heldt, Cain and JC could not get some minutes to soften the blow for the starters.
Positives: The team won 24 games despite having one healthy high-major guard on the roster. Three more high-major guards should be on the roster next season. Also, look to be in position for a strong 2020 class.
Negatives:
We were way short at the most important position in modern basketball (guard) in your fifth season. Also, there are still doubts on what the ceiling is with this staff, which is why there could be some understandable apprehension on how to handle an extension/raise.
I give the staff an A minus for this year.
Prior to the season, I hoped we'd end up in the top three in the conference and earn a bid to the NCAA without being on the bubble.
In terms of non-con play, I was hoping for 10-3 but thought 9-4 was certainly possible. Our record of 11-2 in non-con exceeded my initial expectations.
With respect to league games, I saw an awful lot of parity and anticipated a lot of games that would come down to the final one or two possessions. At absolute best, I was hoping for 13-5 but figured 11-7 was more likely. We ended up 12-6, of course, finishing second in the conference.
In essence, I envisioned this year's team as being in the Top 20-25 in the country or possibly just missing Top 25.
All of those hopes/expectations/projections were based on having a full roster and avoiding major injuries.
Unfortunately, of course, Greg did not play a single game. I had figured he'd be our top reserve at guard (behind Markus and Chartouny) and average 20-25 mpg. Based on comments Wojo made after Greg went down and decided to red-shirt, he was playing well enough in practice to start at guard ahead of both Joe and Sacar. I think had we had Greg this season, we would have won at least three more games and possibly four or five. After all, we lost to St. John's by one point and lost to Georgetown by two points and Seton Hall in the BET by two points.
But all those hopes/expectations/projections were also based on initial thoughts about Joe, Ed, and Jamal.
I had figured Joe was exactly what we needed to be a complete team - a competent pass-first point guard who could set the table for Sam and Markus yet also be a threat to score himself if necessary. That proved to be wishful thinking. Joe was nowhere near the player I'd anticipated on offense or defense.
I had also over-estimated Ed. I expected him to start at the 4 and be an absolutely dominant rebounder. But it turned out he lacked the lateral quickness to defend in space. It also turned out he had absolutely no mid-range game on offense. Instead of being a starter at the 4 and earning 25-26 mpg, he was a solid back up at the 5 and did not show anything close to being a dominant rebounder until the end of the season.
And then there was Jamal. At the very least I expected him to take a small step up from his freshman year. But he didn't. In fact, his outside shot disappeared, nowhere near the 47% it was as a frosh.
Had I known in September that Joe, Ed, and Jamal would not be the players I'd imagined they'd be, my expectations for this season would have been considerably lower than they were.
And had I known in September that Greg would not play a single minute, my expectations would have dropped even further.
Given all of these developments, it is almost a miracle that the team managed to be 23-4 at one point, and equally miraculous that it was ranked in the Top 10 for quite some time.
Wojo and the staff did a terrific job of overcoming Greg's injury/red-shirt as well as my (and others') over-estimation of just how good Joe and Ed really are.
But he doesn't deserve an A. The smoke and mirrors vanished over the last seven games, and Wojo did not come up with new approaches on either offense or defense to right the floundering ship.
I would have liked to see him at least try some zone in some of those games for several possessions. And I wish that the team had made more of a concerted effort to pound the ball inside to at least force opponents to play some interior defense.
In short, we became too one-dimensional - and therefore too predictable - on both ends of the court.
Still, when all is said and done, I think this team over-achieved (though not in the NCAA Tournament game).
Had Greg been healthy all year and had Joe been the player many of us thought he might be, and we ended up with the season we had, I'd probably give Wojo a B minus and felt we had slightly under-achieved.
But one can not ignore the first 27 games of the season. The staff deserves immense credit for achieving those results without a potential starter and with two or three other players being less than what MU fans had hoped they'd be.
I sure as hell hope he is our coach next year.
I'm with you, Phantom.