With the big announcement this weekend, I decided to look at Trent Lockett. He has 12 players to compare to, so I'm confident on this projection. Vander and Jamil have the next most comparable players at 8.

2012-2013 (2011-2012) Statistics

Minutes Per Game: 31.8 (34.9)

Field Goal Percentage: 48.4% (49.8%)

Three Point Percentage: 38% (41.2%)

Free Throw Percentage: 72% (71.1%)

Rebounds Per Game: 5.7 (5.8)

Assists Per Game: 2.4 (2.2)

Blocks Per Game: 0.4 (0.5)

Steals Per Game 1.1 (1.5)

Turnovers Per Game: 2.3 (3.2)

Points Per Game: 13.84 (13.0)

A minor increase in numbers with a minimal decrease in minutes played. If you are looking for a similar Marquette offensive player, I'm thinking DJO's sophomore year: 13 points in 29.7 minutes. A similar offensive Big East player from last year would be Shabazz Napier: 13 points in 35 minutes.

See Vander Blue profile for how I came up with this.

Confidence Level: 80%

Jamil Wilson 2012-2013 stats (2011-2012)

Minutes Per Game: 21.4 (24.1)

Field Goal Percentage: 47.1% (44.8%)

Three Point Percentage: 29% (34.5%)

Free Throw Percentage: 67.3% (70.7%)

Rebounds per Game: 4 (4.1)

Assists per Game: 1.2 (1.1)

Blocks per Game: 0.5 (1.4)

Steals per Game: 0.7 (0.7)

Turnovers per Game: 1.19 (1.1)

Points per Game: 7.547 (7.1)

Does Ken Pomeroy know O'Tule is coming back? Jamil played over 19 minutes once before O'Tule went down and Chris coming back will cut into Jamil's minutes at the 5. There will be a huge void of minutes from Jae graduating. I see more realistically Davante and Jamil each averaging 25 minutes with their stats reflecting that: Jamil 9 points per game, Davante 13 points per game.

Most Similar Marquette Players

2007 Ousmane Barro 8 points, 7 rebounds per game

2011-2012 Big East Player

Yancy Gates- 12 points, 9 rebounds per game

I would take either line above for Jamil for next season.

Projections are based off of Ken Pomeroy's ratings as explained in the Vander Blue post.

Confidence Level: 60%

2012-2013 Projection (2011-2012 Numbers)

Minutes per Game: 26.5 (28.6)

Field Goal Percentage: 41.5% (38.4%)

Three Point Percentage: 40% (23.7%)

Free Throw Percentage: 69.5% (68.6%)

Rebounds per Game: 2.4 (2.1)

Assists per Game: 3.8 (5.4)

Blocks per Game: 0.1 (0.2)

Steals per Game: 1.1 (1.1)

Turnovers per Game: 2.0 (2.6)

Points per Game: 7.2 (6.3)

A good increase in Field Goal percentage is noted and a minor increase in points. This comes with a loss of assists, and also a decrease in turnovers. Assist to turnover ratio 2011-2012: 2.08; 2012-2013: 1.9.

Recent Comparable Offensive Rating Marquette Player

Dwight Buycks 2011- 8.8 points, 3.4 assists in 28.1 minutes

2011-2012 Big East Comparable Offensive Rating Player

Dion Dixon, Cincy- 13 points, 2.1 assists in 34 minutes

Hey Golden Eagles,

I used to keep up a NC State Basketball Recruiting Chart over at PackPride (the NC State Scout boards) which combined all the links and ratings from Scout, ESPN, and Rivals. It got difficult to maintain by hand, so I automated the process, and threw a basic UI together and put it up on the web. I did the same for all the other schools while I was automating it. I threw in YouTube highlights and Twitter feeds for every ranked recruit that I could find, and added the depth chart at the recruits position for each of their offers.

I started cleaning up the rosters on the ACC teams first, and then moved on to the rest of the BCS conferences.

BTW, I haven't gotten to validating the active rosters for schools outside the BCS conferences yet, so that data will be inaccurate due to red-shirts, prep schools, junior colleges and transfers.

Obviously this info does not contain any of the great inside info that you get here at Anonymous Eagle, as they'll have all the latest and greatest on Marquette Hoops, but it might make a nice compliment to the info you're getting here. It's more of a 10,000 foot view if that makes sense.

Anyway, here is the Marquette page and a couple of your recruits' profile pages, (you can navigate to other schools at the top, its a bit wonky, but it should work if you select the team then hit the "Go!" button).

Let me know if you see any corrections, or have any questions. Hope you enjoy!

Marquette | Verbal Commits

Duane Wilson | Verbal Commits

Steve Taylor | Verbal Commits

Deonte Burton | Verbal Commits

See the methodology for Vander Blue on how these projections were reached.

Davante Gardner 2012-2013 (2011-2012)

Minutes per game: 27.3 (19.1)

Points per game: 14.67 (9.5)

Field Goal Percentage: 50.8% (56.1%)

Three Point Percentage: 22% (0%)

Free Throw Percentage: 73.1% (75.5%)

Rebounds per game: 6.9 (5.3)

Assists per game: 1.3 (0.7)

Blocks per game: 0.6 (0.2)

Steals per game: 0.8 (0.8)

Turnovers per game: 2.09 (1.2)

Confidence Level: 60%. I added this because there are certain players who have more data than others. Vander's would be approximately 80%.

If one would take Davante's points from this season and bumped it to 27 minutes, he would average 13.58 points. So a minor increase in points would be noted, if Davante is able to play more minutes. The ability to play more minutes is the key to his season, in my opinion. The offensive efficiency would go down by playing more minutes, but it would go down to DJO levels, rather than close to Jae's. Does Buzz continue to use Davante as an offensive "microwave" and maximize his efficiency? Or does Davante become a more focal point in the offense (with less offensive efficiency) with the two best offensive options graduating?

Closest Offensive Near Past Marquette Player

2011-2012 DJO- 18.3 points in 32.9 minutes

Big East Closest Offensive Player

Looking at Ken Pomeroy's Ortg and % Possessions, it's actually Maalik Wayns- 17.6 points in 33.6 minutes

Look for an increase in possessions used and a minor decrease in offensive efficiency overall.

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Ken Pomeory has a wonderful feature on his website where he compares players statistically to other players. Most of the “similar” players have the same class. For instance Vander’s freshman year, he is most comparable to Ole Miss/ Seton Hall player Eniel Polynice’s freshman season. I took all of the players that I was able to (some could not, for instance Vander’s 2012 season is very similar to SLU guard Jordair Jett’s 2012 season) and projected what they did their junior year. For the players most similar to Vander’s freshman year I looked at stats 2 years out. For his sophomore year, I looked at stats 1 year out. So I used Eniel Polynice’s junior year and Clemson’s Tanner Smith (most comparable sophomore year) junior year as well as other players to project Vander’s junior year. I used a weighted average and weighted the freshmen players half as much as the sophomore players. This is very crude. Most players do not have similar comparable players for consecutive years, probably because college basketball is very dynamic. Players and coaches change every season. I still thought it was fun and a way to get through the off-season to see what players project as.

Vander Blue 2012- 2013 Projection (2011-2012 in parentheses)

Minutes per Game- 28.9 (25.7)

Field Goal Percentage- 42.2% (41.3%)

Three Point Percentage- 31% (25.8%)

Free Throw Percentage- 72.4% (70.8%)

Points per Game- 10.21 (8.4)

Rebounds per Game- 3.8 (4.5)

Assists per Game- 3.2 (2.6)

Blocks per Game- 0.3 (0.2)

Steals per Game- 1.3 (1.1)

Turnovers per Game- 2.11 (2.2)

A modest uptick overall. One could say that if you increase his minutes to 29 that he would have averaged 9.45 points per game, so he might increase his scoring average overall.

Close Marquette Players to The Above Line

2007 Lazar Hayward 6.6 points and 3.6 rebounds per game, 16.3 minutes

2007 Wes Matthews 12.6 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, 31.2 minutes

Vander’s hypothetical line for 2012-2013 would look greater if he was going to be a sophomore. One of his 2011-2012 comparables for his sophomore season was Wes Matthew’s sophomore season. Other comparables include Justin Dentmon (currently on the San Antonio Spurs) and Tory Jackson who was in training camp with the Bucks after graduating. The NBA potential is still there.

Close 2011-2012 Big East Player

Rutgers Guard Myles Mack (freshman)- 9.8 points, 2 rebounds, 2.1 assists per game (26.6 minutes)

I tried to find a player that was similar in the Big East and I think this is a decent comp.

Next up: Davante Gardner

Michael Hunt wrote this:

Look, I'm not saying it's OK for underage kids to be in a bar. Of course it's not OK. The players had no business being in there and breaking the law.

And it is nonsense.

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Your Golden Eagles closed out the regular season with a 69-58 loss to #24/20 Rutgers in Piscataway on Monday after ending their home schedule with a 85-45 loss to #4/4 Connecticut on Saturday.

UConn came into Saturday's contest having won 14 games this season by 40 points or more, but Marquette stayed relatively competitive despite an shooting an atrocious 18.8% from the field: the Huskies went into halftime with a mere 34-21 lead. With UConn up 44-28 early in the second half, coach Geno Auriemma lost his mind when UConn's Kelly Faris was called for a charge. He was assessed a technical which sent Katherine Plouffe to the line: she sank both free throws to pull Marquette within 14. But a fire was lit under the Huskies who quickly and steadily pulled away for another decisive victory. The Golden Eagles made all 15 of their free throw attempts, but only hit 13 of 61 from the field.

Tonight's game was a slightly different animal although the results were too familiar. Marquette found itself in a hole that was as big as 13 points in the first half, but battled back to pull within 5 before the close of the first half. However, Rutgers opened the second half on a 9-0 run which was just the cushion they needed to top Marquette. Plouffe, Katie Young, and Arlesia Morse all broke the double digit scoring barrier while Gabi Minix dished out 8 assists. Young and Morse both made 3 of 6 from beyond the arc.

The bad news is that these two losses leave Marquette at 13-16 overall and 4-12 in Big East play. The good news is that Saturday was not Senior Night at the McGuire Center because the Golden Eagles should be returning this entire crew next year. I'm very hopeful and excited about what this group can accomplish in the future.

Up Next: The Big East Women's Championship gets underway Friday March 2 in Hartford, CT. 14 seed Marquette takes on 11 seed Cincinnati at 9 pm.

Amid all the excitement surrounding the run the men's basketball team has put up many may have forgotten that there are other sports on campus. The MU women's tennis team have has compiled a stellar dual record of 8-1 and takes on rival Wisconsin Sunday morning at 10am at Helfaer stadium. They haven't been charging admission, so there's just no excuse not to get yourself down there and cheer on the team.

Friday night the women downed Ball State (IN) and the number 1 doubles team of Gillian Hush and Olga Fischer remained unbeaten as a pair.

The Golden Eagle's dual schedule has 4 more home matches leading up to the Big East tournament in late April and NCAA tournaments in May.

Too bad the story will be miscategorizered as NCAA Basketball, there are no meaningful choices.

Ball State match link: http://www.gomarquette.com/sports/w-tennis/recaps/022412aaa.html

Your Golden Eagles ended a four game losing streak on Saturday evening by topping the Panthers 72-48 at the McGuire Center. After going down 17-7 early, Pitt rallied to pull within five. But Marquette's lead never was in danger thanks to the efforts of Katherine Plouffe who scored 16 in the first half on her way to a double double. She ended the night with 19 points and 15 rebounds.

Marquette went into halftime with a 36-25 lead which ballooned to 48-25 when Pitt failed to score until nearly 5 minutes in the second half. Marquette then went cold allowing 13 unanswered points by Pitt who pulled within 10, but that was the closest that the Panthers would get to the lead. With nine minutes to play Arlesia Morse broke the Golden Eagle's shooting slump: she sank a jumper, drew a foul, and drained the free throw to put the Golden Eagles back on track. Morse was on fire in the second half scoring 16 to put up a career best 24 points overall.

An item of note was Apiew Ojulu's absence. She did not start and only played 2 minutes. After subbing out at the 12:56 mark in the first half, she came out of the tunnel with a boot on her right foot. With Courtney Thomas and Lauren Tibbs still sidelined, an Ojulu injury would leave Marquette with only 8 healthy players. Here's hoping (since I've been unable to find any information) that the issue is minor and with Marquette in control of the game it was a good opportunity to rest Ojulu.

Onto the highlights:

After the jump, Awards.

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