Point Blank – November 27
Wojo’s tough ride (or, “Did Buzz Williams foresee this”?)…Anchors Aweigh in Mobile…Can Air Force fly, without the “wing”…
When Buzz Williams departed from Marquette for a seemingly lateral move to Virginia Tech this past spring, it came as a major surprise. He left a program where he had established a winning routine, consistently getting the kind of players that would play his style, and the Golden Eagles were going to annually be prime competitors in the reconfigured Big East. Instead, Williams will be in Blacksburg, where in a very good season the Hokies will still finish in the bottom half of the ridiculously-tough ACC.
Which, in turn, seemed to open up a great spot in Milwaukee for Steve Wojciechowski to make his HC debut. Except it has been a disaster so far, one that many will not have noticed because a few of the games were off the radar screens. It raises the question about whether Williams perhaps saw this season coming, which helped make his decision to leave.
Marquette beat Tennessee-Martin 79-63 in the opener, a scoreboard that would not raise any eyebrows. But closer inspection saw that a weak sister shot better than 50 percent on two-point attempts (18-35), and won the boards 33-22. A 74-63 loss as +12 at Ohio State also does not look so bad, until you notice that the Buckeyes shot 65.3 percent from the field, and had 23 assists on 32 made baskets. But now it starts to get really ugly.
The Golden Eagles were beaten at home 97-89 by Nebraska-Omaha on Saturday night, allowing 57.1 percent shooting, and getting crushed 37-23 on the boards. In their previous game, the Mavericks were routed 98-74 at Seattle. That set up what would ordinarily be labeled as a “gut check” for Marquette on Monday night, despite the opponent being rather lowly New Jersey Institute of Technology. But instead of finding themselves, there were some stretches of fingernails-across-chalkboard basketball – the Golden Eagles only escaped 62-57, after trailing at halftime, and leading by only one with 1:32 remaining. The got out-rebounded again.
Despite playing three of four games against weak opponents at home, Marquette has been out-rebounded 131-98, and has allowed an awful 56.9 percent on two-point FG attempts. That is what happens when your starting lineup goes 6-7 (Steve Taylor), 6-6 (Juan Anderson), 6-2 (Duane Wilson), 6-2 (Matt Carlino), and 6-1 (Derrick Wilson). The only roster player over 6-7 is Luke Fischer, who does not become eligible until December 16, and until then only nine players are dressing.
Sometimes an ugly showing, like the one vs. Nebraska-Omaha, can be excused as a team transitions to a new coach. But when it is followed up with the kind of ugly win that took place vs. NJIT, it means major problems that will not have quick fixes. The field in the Orlando Classic that opens today will be a difficult one for them, and think about this as part of your Thursday matchup equation - Georgia Tech is +45 in rebounding through three games. The Yellow Jackets are not the ideal chalk model because of that horrific 54.4 percent free throw shooting, which is truly mind- numbing, with three different players at 50 percent or less with nine or more attempts. But they are making over 50 percent of their two-point attempts, and should dominate the interior play. The Marquette reward if Georgia Tech can be beaten? Round #2 vs. Michigan State on Friday. Would the Golden Eagles find their way to a rebound at all in that matchup?
Wojciechowski is hardly taking the approach of winning this tourney to ignite this team’s season; instead it may be more about survival - "We'll try to give them as much rest as we can as we're preparing mentally and emotionally. We're going to have to learn how to play through fatigue. That's part of learning and growing as a player."
Wojo may turn out to be a terrific coach, and the recruits that he has already signed for next year could lead to one of the best classes the program has had since Dwayne Wade’s letter of intent. But this may be a black hole of a season, one in which the quality teams of the recent past should be forgotten. And perhaps one that Williams saw coming, which would indeed explain a lot.
In the Sights, I…
With a lot of focus turned towards the particulars of late-season situations as we handicap the final weeks of NCAA play, there are both Play On and Play Against factors aligning behind #333 Navy at South Alabama on Friday afternoon. And as often is the case in late November, it starts with energy. The favorite will have plenty; the underdog likely not enough.
This will only be the second November game for Navy, and the first was dynamite, a 52-19 rout of Georgia Southern that eclipsed the market expectations by more than a four TDs. Now the Midshipmen put their full focus over the past two weeks on preparing for this game, before then having another bye week leading up to that showdown vs. Army. But there is also a catch this time. While they are aligned with the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego if they have enough wins to qualify, pushing the Army clash back to December 13 raises an issue – the bowl may need to have its commitment set before then. So while calling for Navy to play hard and win almost goes without saying, because of the discipline of the Academy (#1 in the nation for fewest penalty yards per game again this season), there is an added urgency here. And with three Naval bases within an easy drive of Mobile, there will be far more fan support than a road team would usually have.
Meanwhile it is the seventh game in as many weeks for the Jaguars, taxing a program that is still getting its legs at this level, and it did not help that they had to physically step up in class at South Carolina last week. A tired defense should struggle with both the focus needed to not get out of position vs. the Navy option attack, and also to make the tackles in a game in which they may have to defend 50+ rush attempts.
In the Sights, II…
While Navy may have a unique advantage of more fan support than most visiting teams this week, it will be a different story for their Commander-in-Chief rivals at Air Force. The “Cadet Wing”, the Falcon student body, will be extremely sparse. The Academy goes on break for Thanksgiving, and given how hard those students work, and also because how far many of them come from to attend, when it is time for a break they will leave Colorado Springs en masse. How rare is it for the Falcons to play a home game Thanksgiving week? How about never; this will be the first time. What will the environment be like? Try this, from OC Mike Thiessen –
“I don’t know. I’ll find out how weird it is when it actually happens. It’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that they won’t be there. In this era of college football you’ve got to play this week, so we don’t have a choice. Can we put an ad out there to have all the Fort Carson troops out and come fill that section so we can feel at home?”
Exacerbating the issue is that #341 Colorado State will bring plenty of fans for the ride down I-25, and it is an easy trip for the Ram players, who will bus down Thursday evening. But in addition to staying alive for a trip to the MWC Championship game, there is also the matter of eliminating a bitter taste from their last trip here, an ugly 42-21 loss in 2012. How bad was it for HC Jim McElwain? Even though the Rams got a measure of revenge with a 58-13 drubbing LY, he was still talking about the 2012 result earlier this week – “The worst day of my entire, whether playing or coaching, career was down there in that stadium.”
McElwain and his staff are also well-positioned to put a game plan together vs. the Air Force option – there was a bye two weeks ago, and then the New Mexico option attack last week, so the defense has had a long cycle of having to think about nothing else but stopping this kind of ground game. The starters were out of the game early vs. New Mexico last week, with a 51-7 lead midway through the third quarter, and that means a lot of freshness to atone for their HC’s bad memory from this field.
This week at Point Blank -
Monday: What a “Bettor Better Know” – NCAA #13
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Tuesday: What a “Bettor Better Know” – NFL #12
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Wednesday: NFL Thursday: A Triptophan effect?...A Homecoming on Paradise Island…Reputation vs. Reality in Maui…
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