Marquette Setting Itself Up Nicely...

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

Louisville and Syracuse terrify me to no end, because those two teams specialize in what our weakness is. Louisville is great at creating turnovers and playing good pressure D... Our passing has been less than stellar this year. As for Syracuse they play one of the better zones year in and year out... I think our struggles against the zone is well documented.

What helps us is that they play each other twice. Louisville also plays ND twice and Syracuse has to play GT twice. Our schedule looks a lot easier on paper than either of theirs does, in my opinion.

As far as beating them, I think Peyton Siva is due to have a few crap games. I'm just not convinced he's nearly as good as everyone seems to want us to believe. And we always play them very well. I know the old adage about how one season has nothing to do with the rest, but this has always been a special rivalry that leads to interesting games, and you can usually throw out the records, the computer numbers, and even home court advantage when we play.

Syracuse scares me more. They have a ton of length, a great zone, and are just as deep as we are. If they don't have Southerland that will help, but I figure there's a decent chance he'll be back by mid-February. Can't imagine Boeheim not getting him eligible again.

[TheSultan]

And we always play them very well.

Except for last year at MSG.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

Except for last year at MSG.

Very true. But our regular season games have generally always been very good.