Know Your Foe
A Brief By-The-Numbers Look At Rutgers
by Brewtown Andy on Feb 22, 2012 12:00 PM CST
in Know Your Foe
The Rutgers Scarlet Knights come to Milwaukee tonight to face off with YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles. Rutgers comes into the game with an overall record of 12-15 and a Big East record of 4-10. They are currently on a 5 game losing streak and have won a total of 2 games all year away from the RAC: At Pittsburgh, which is much less impressive than it would have been in years past, and a neutral site game against Stony Brook (your current America East Conference leader) that was played at Madison Square Garden.
I could go through the usual statistical assessment of Rutgers, but it's not terribly fun to point out that there's not much to get excited about here. I could talk about their offensive rebounding, but it's not as impressive if you're only looking at Big East games. They do a good job of creating turnovers, but Marquette is exceptional at protecting the ball.
This is not to say that Rutgers is not without ability. What we'll do today is look at two results from Rutgers' season that should cause your average Marquette fan to say, "Well, if they can do that to those guys, our guys need to be careful." Follow the jump for more...
2 commentsA Brief By-The-Numbers Look At Connecticut
by Brewtown Andy on Feb 17, 2012 12:00 PM CST
in Know Your Foe
YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles head to the northeast United States tomorrow to take on the Connecticut Huskies. UConn started out their national title defense solidly, winning 10 games and only falling to Central Florida in the second game of an exempt tournament event in the Bahamas. Even Big East season started out well. With head coach Jim Calhoun suspended for 3 games by the NCAA, the Huskies won their first two games before contributing to the Bizarro Big East by losing at Seton Hall. Calhoun's return to the bench resulted in another loss, this time at Rutgers. UConn righted the ship and won their next two, including at Notre Dame, something that Marquette was unable to do.
That's when things went sideways. Since the win over Notre Dame, UConn has lost 6 of 8, including a mid-season non-conference loss at Tennessee. On top of the struggles on the court, Jim Calhoun has taken a medical leave of absence to deal with a case of spinal stenosis, which is a narrowing of the spinal cord. From what I understand, this is the same condition that caused WWE wrestler Edge to retire about one year ago. I don't know if it's bad that Calhoun has a condition that a professional wrestler developed, or if it's bad that a professional wrestler has a condition that a 69 year old man developed. In any case, Calhoun has missed the last 4 games in which the Huskies are 2-2. There is no timetable set for Calhoun's return, which means that associate head coach George Blaney is in charge of the team for the forseeable future.
This is where things may be tipped in Marquette's favor. Join us after the jump for more.
A Brief By-The-Numbers Look At DePaul
by Brewtown Andy on Feb 6, 2012 11:01 AM CST
in Know Your Foe
We've all been down this road with the DePaul Blue Demons before. We've been dealing with DePaul since 1918 and Marquette has played DePaul every single season since 1958-59. Marquette has beaten DePaul more times than any other school.
As far as recent history goes, DePaul has not been any good whatsoever. With their 2-8 record in conference play, DePaul has matched their Big East win total from the previous THREE seasons combined. This brings us to the only statistic that matters when it comes to playing DePaul.
Join us after the jump for the breakdown.
Know Your Foe: On the Notre Dame Burning Men
by Rubie Q on Feb 3, 2012 8:30 AM CST
in Know Your Foe
A couple days back, on the heels of the epically awful Michigan State-Illinois rock fight that ended in a 42-41 Illini victory, Shane Ryan wrote a post at Grantland's The Triangle blog advocating the introduction of a 24-second shot clock in college basketball. The thesis of the post, in a nutshell: the number of possessions in the average college basketball has fallen steadily since the late 1990s, and during that same time frame, there's also been a significant (though probably not precipitous) drop in scoring. Ryan attempts to tie those two facts together, and argues that the increase in pace forced by a 24-second shot clock would go far to restoring the luster that Ryan feels is lacking from the college game.
It's a superficially intriguing argument, I suppose, but among the myriad problems with the thesis -- for example: (1) correlation (lower possessions and lower scoring since 1997) isn't necessarily causation (lower possessions = lower scoring); (2) decreasing the shot clock wouldn't have made the Michigan State-Illinois game any prettier, it just would've meant more missed shots; and (3) it wholly disregards the detrimental effect one-and-dones are having on the quality of the college game: scores are lower, in part, because a lot of the really good players pop in for a season and then bail for the NBA -- is the fact that Ryan uses Wisconsin as his example of the team that's destroying college basketball with a plodding pace.
I'm loathe to dismiss another man's distaste for Bo and the Badgers, of course, but it seems than Shane Ryan has a particularly sharp burr up his ass when it comes to Buckyball -- you might recall his earlier essay declaring the Badgers The Most Boring Team in America after UW nearly went all tortoise-and-the-hare in a game against UNC in Chapel Hill -- and that bias points his argument about tempo in college basketball in the wrong direction.
You want to see a team that's ruining college basketball with tempo? Don't bother with Madison, where the Badgers at least have the decency to run an offense while they're bleeding out the shot clock. Look towards South Bend, Indiana.
Let's talk about the nauseating "burn" offense, after the jump.
A Brief By-The-Numbers Look At Seton Hall
by Brewtown Andy on Jan 31, 2012 1:30 PM CST
in Know Your Foe
Kevin "Fred" Willard brings his crew of Pirates into Milwaukee tonight for a game against YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles. Seton Hall presents an interesting puzzle for college basketball fans. The Pirates rolled into the Big East schedule with a record of 11 wins and just 1 loss. The loss was in a neutral court game against a respectable Northwestern team and was their third game in four days. After finishing the non-conference schedule with a close road win at Dayton and a blowout road win at Longwood, the Pirates had their first Big East test in the Carrier Dome against Syracuse and promptly got rolled, 75-49.
To their credit, Seton Hall took that in stride and promptly became the poster child for the Bizarro Big East, winning their next four games. That's where things turned. The Pirates haven't won a game since, dropping to 4-5 in Big East play and 15-6 overall.
Follow the jump, and with a hat tip to StatSheet.com, we'll see what the numbers can tell us about what's going on with Seton Hall.
So What Has Villanova Been Up To?
by Brewtown Andy on Jan 27, 2012 10:25 AM CST
in Know Your Foe
When Marquette defeated Villanova by the score of 81-77 on New Year's Day, the loss dropped the Wildcats to 0-2 in the Big East and 7-7 overall. It confirmed what people were probably thinking already: Jay Wright's team is in a lot of trouble this season.
Since then, they've had their ups and downs in the standings. Villanova currently sits at 10-11 overall with a conference record of 3-6. We all know what Marquette's been doing in the meantime. Let's check in before tomorrow's game and see how the last 7 games have treated Villanova.
The Inquisition: A Friendly Chat With Voodoo Five
by Brewtown Andy on Jan 24, 2012 1:00 PM CST
in Know Your Foe
We make a lot of grand statements around here about the opponents on the basketball schedule on a regular basis. These refer mostly to the basketball teams only. There are the rare exceptions where we don't like the fan base either, but South Florida is not one of them. We're big fans of Voodoo Five, and as such, we turned to Ken DeCelles of V5 to provide us with some insight into tonight's game. We provided Voodoo Five with answers to their questions about Marquette, so be sure to check that out!
Without further ado, on to the questions!
Anonymous Eagle: First things first: Congratulations on your team's early season success in the Bizarro Big East! What would your reaction have been before the season if someone had told you that the winner of Tuesday night's game between Marquette and USF would move into a tie for second place in the Big East?
Voodoo Five: I would have believed the Marquette part, but there was no way that I could have imagined USF would be off to the start it has been. The emergence of Anthony Collins, JAWANZA! Poland, and Toarlyn Fitzpatrick has been fun to watch, and the team seems to be buying into the defense first message Coach Heath has been teaching. We can even consistently beat the press this year!
More questions after the jump!
A Brief By-The-Numbers Look At St. John's
by Brewtown Andy on Jan 11, 2012 12:00 PM CST
in Know Your Foe
Marquette looks to get back to winning tonight against St. John's (6pm Central, ESPNU). It's Al's Night, as Marquette celebrates the career of Al McGuire. It's not a coincidence that the game is against St. John's, as Al played for the Redmen from 1948-1951. St. John's comes in with a record of 8-7 overall and 2-2 in Big East play. Their wins are at home against Providence and at Cincinnati with the losses coming at Connecticut and home against Louisville. St. John's comes in with a KenPom ranking of 146, barely edging out DePaul (158) for the worst ranking in the conference.
With a hat tip to StatSheet.com, we go looking at some numbers...
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