Darius. Johnson. Odom.  Yeah, you may have heard of this guy.  In case you haven't, let me bring you up to speed. 

Darius Johnson-Odom -- the kids just call him DJO -- is a senior guard out of Raleigh, NC, who arrived at Marquette by way of Hutchinson Community College.  I'll never forget watching him play for the first time at the Haunted Hoops event in 2009.  You could tell right away that this kid was going to be a good one.  He proved that in his first year ('09-'10), emerging as the team's third-leading scorer and shooting a Novakian 47% from three-point land.  Last season, DJO was expected to become an even bigger part of the MU attack.  He struggled a bit in the early going, but found his rhythm in time for the conference season.  He wound up leading the team in scoring (15.8 ppg) and earning second team All-Big East honors.  Oh, and along the way, he also hit one of the biggest shots in recent memory: a late three-pointer against Syracuse that propelled Marquette into the Sweet Sixteen.

This season Johnson-Odom will be expected to be "The Man" for the Golden Eagles.  He'll be looked to as the go-to scorer and senior leader, just as Lazar Hayward and Jimmy Butler were before him.  There has been plenty of buzz coming into this season: he was voted to the preseason All-Big East first team and is considered a serious contender for the Big East Player of the Year award.  The lights will be shining brightly on DJO this season and I see no reason not to expect him to answer that challenge.

In My Wildest Dreams: The best case scenario for DJO is he lives up to the hype and then some.  We certainly know what he's capable of doing on offense, but he has history of being quite streaky.  There have been stretches where he looks completely unstoppable and drops 20 points in 10 minutes, but then other times -- sometimes in the same game -- when he disappears entirely.  I've often joked that if DJO could ever put two good halves together in one game he would easily score 40 points.  Hopefully this is the season that we see a few games like that.  I also hope that he continues to make strides on the defensive end this season.  After being a matador of the highest order in his first year at MU, DJO improved to a serviceable defender last season.  If he continues on that path defensively, and produces offensively the way we know he can, I see no reason DJO can't challenge for conference POTY and help Marquette make some serious noise this season.

In My Worst Nightmare: I dare not audibly speak the worst case scenario for this player, for fear that it might actually come true (hint: it rhymes with the name of the dude that hangs out with Ernie on Sesame Street).  Barring any awful, unforeseen circumstances, the worst scenario I can think of is that DJO is simply the same player he was last year.  Not that there is anything wrong with what he did last year, but I think everyone is counting on him to take that next step, just like Jimmy and Lazar did.  We're all hoping that he can seamlessly make the transition from Robin to Batman. 

Senior forward Jae Crowder was a beast -- and an efficient one at that -- last season. Anything less than that this year would qualify as a major let down. How great was Crowder's first season of D-1 hoops? So good that Cracked Sidewalks compared him to Craig Biggio. 

Jae arrived at Marquette the same way Dwight Buycks, Jimmy Butler and DJO did before him: via the JUCO route. In his first season, he produced at a very solid level: 27 minutes, 12 points, and 7 rebounds a game. If you haven't looked at his "Team Impact" numbers, then you don't get a true idea of his statistical impact: solid numbers all across the board. His numbers tapered off in the month of February, but his March easily made up for it. With the great unknown facing Marquette in 2011-'12 being: "Who will replace Jimmy Butler?," the task will fall to Crowder to make up for some of Butler's lost production.

Despite only fouling out two times in 37 games, getting into early foul trouble was Jae's Achilles heel last season, and it's the primary reason he only started 17 games last season despite his excellent numbers.

If you haven't read the DraftExpress.com profile on Jae, I highly suggest you do. It's better than any of the words you just read.

Minimum Expectations:
Maintains his 2010-11 level of offensive production. I would hope his defense would see some improvement, but I'm not holding my breath.

In My Wildest Dreams:
Jae builds upon his solid first year of D-1 hoops. Staying out of foul trouble, getting nearly 35 minutes a game and averaging something close to a double-double every night.

In My Worst Nightmare:
He gets injured? I honestly don't see a scenario (other than injury) where his game regresses significantly in 2011-'12. Crowder's too smart and too skilled a player to have his game slip from last season's production level -- unless, of course, he shoots worse than 61% from the free throw line. That would give me an ulcer. Don't do that, Jae.

First off: please don't ever ask Junior to sing. Thankfully, he's not under scholarship for his vocal stylings. Junior enters his junior season facing the same situation he encountered last year: as the only veteran "true" point guard on the roster. In 2010-'11, anyway, that fact wasn't enough to earn Cadougan the starting point guard job, as Coach Buzz Williams instead opted to give senior guard Dwight Buycks most of the minutes at the helm of MU's offense.

But as Buycks' playing time and quality of play diminished towards the end of the season, Cadougan was more than willing to take advantage of the opportunity. He only managed four points per game in his 20 minutes of action per contest, showing that Junior's scoring game is not his strong suit. Unlike many point guards, Junior isn't much of a deep threat -- he never had more that two three-pointers in a game last year, and he only managed a 15% shooting percentage from beyond the arc.

Junior's a slashing point guard in the truest sense of the term, which was on full display against lowly Providence last season, when he recorded his first career double-double with 10 points, 10 assists and 6 rebounds. The kid won't kill you from long range, but he will continually drive to the basket either dishing the rock or going in for the lay up.

Minimum Expectations:
Junior builds off of last season, going from solid back-up PG to a dependable starter, giving the team 25-30 minutes a game. We'll hopefully see some additional offense from him, too, if for no other reason than to keep the opposition's defense honest.

In My Wildest Dreams:
Not only do we see the transition to starting PG work seamlessly, but we see a floor leader emerge. If Cadougan is able to create enough scoring opportunities for his teammates, I expect a significant improvement on his 2-to-1 assist to turnover ratio from last season (which was good for 125th in country). If he improves in that area, and maintains his tenacious defense, he'll never see the bench.

In My Worst Nightmare:
Cadougan feels pressure from freshman PG Derrick Wilson and can't handle the rigors of being the coach on the floor, and falls back into the same pattern of inconsistency that marked his sophomore year.

When you're trying to figure out why sophomore guard Vander Blue's freshman campaign is almost universally considered a disappointment, you end up identifying a few contributing factors:

• His superlative ranking coming out of Madison Memorial high school: 24th nationally (and seventh at his position) by Rivals, 31st by ESPNU, sixth at his position by Scout. Everywhere you looked, you found the same thought: this guy could be really good.
• The fact that Vander turned his back on the Great Red Menace (and the backlash that resulted, including one of the nastiest hit-jobs on a high school recruit we've seen in these parts in some time, from "professional journalist" and Badger House Organ Rob Schultz) and chose the greener pastures to the east.
• His solid play to start the 2010-'11 season: nobody's going to get excited* about 7 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists against Prairie View, or 16 points, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists against Centenary, or 21 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, but you might not remember that Vander logged 29 effective minutes against Wisconsin, tallying 7 points and 3 rebounds, or that he put together a 10-2-3 line with two steals in 22 minutes against Vandy. Point is: throughout the non-conference schedule, Vander looked like he belonged on the floor.

* OK, fine: I got excited.

Unfortunately (and as you're no doubt painfully aware): the conference season was an animal of a different sort.

More on Vander, after the jump.

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Chris Otule comes into his redshirt junior season as the likely starter at the 5 spot.  The Richmond, Texas native came to Milwaukee as a big man project in the 2008-'09 season.  After missing the first 10 games of his career with a foot injury, he played in only nine games and made a limited impact.  Another foot injury ended his would-be sophomore season after only three games.

Otule was a big unknown coming into the 2010-'11 season, but delivered an improved campaign, displaying occasional flashes of defensive dominance.  Chris averaged 5.1 points and 3.6 rebounds a contest while averaging 18 minutes.  Buzz Williams clearly gained confidence in Otule as the season wore on as he averaged 20 minutes during Big East play despite frequent bouts of foul trouble. 

Looking ahead to 2011-'12, Otule should battle Davante Gardner for playing time, but will likely garner more run do to his edge defensively.  Otule can block shots and generally does a better job of making his man earn points.

Chris is more limited offensively than Davante, but showed nice progress in getting his defender on his back and earning the entry pass.  Free throws continue to be a struggle for the big man.  Improving on his career 54% FT shooting is crucial to increasing his offensive contributions.

Minimum Expectations:

Otule logs 20+ minutes a game and continues his improved defensive play.  Averaging 8 points and 5 boards a game is certainly attainable and expected.

In My Wildest Dreams:

Otule becomes a dominating force down low, leading the Big East in blocked shots.  The steadying force down low allows the guards and wings to take a few more defensive risks on the perimeter, increasing overall steal and turnover numbers.  On the offensive side, Otule consistently finishes around the basket and averages 12 and 7.

In My Worst Nightmare:

Big men with a history of foot problems scare me.  The worst nightmare is Otule going down again with another foot injury, putting all the low-post pressure on Davante Gardner.

In the land of the all-guard offense, the offensively skilled big man is king.  Davante Gardner arrived at Marquette as a relatively under the radar guy with a big body.  Around these parts, that's enough to pique everyone's interest and expectations.  

After pouring in 17 in the 2010-2011 season opener and sparking MU to a comeback win over Bucknell in the second game, the fanbase was clamoring for more and assigning a plethora of nicknames:  Ox, The Artist, etc.  Solid offensive efforts against Duke, Wisconsin and Green Bay continued the excitement. 

Run was much more difficult to come by once Big East play rolled around and Chris Otule more firmly established himself at the 5 spot.  Davante didn't log double digit minutes until the 12^th Big East game at Georgetown.  He took the most of his opportunity and scored 12 points on 4-6 shooting and 4-5 from the line before fouling out. 

Learn more about Davante Gardner after the jump.

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He got overshadowed (understandably) with the addition of Vander Blue to Coach Buzz Williams' 2010 recruiting class, but it bears remembering that, until Vander came on board, sophomore shooting guard/small forward Jamail Jones was the crown jewel of the group. The Georgia native was ranked No. 52 overall by Rivals (and tenth amongst small forwards) in 2010, and in his senior year he averaged 16.3 ppg, 5.3 rpg, and 2.2 apg for Montverde (FL) Academy, which finished the season ranked fifth nationally amongst high schools.

With the departure of Marquette stalwart Lazar Hayward after the 2009-'10 season, Jones was expected to snag some minutes at the small forward position last year, much as Hayward had done in his freshman year in 2006-'07. That wasn't meant to be, though: Jamail saw spot action in the non-conference season (the most minutes he logged in a single game were the 14 he got against Mississippi Valley State) and was a forgotten man once Big East play rolled around. Jones got a DNP - Coach's Decision in twelve of Marquette's 18 Big East regular season games; in fact, he got nearly as much run during Louisville's rout of MU in the Big East Tournament (17 minutes) as he did during the Big East regular season combined (18 minutes total in six games).

The primary reason Jones didn't sniff the floor in his freshman year: defense. He's clearly as athletic as anyone on the team, and in the limited action he saw last season, he showed he's a capable (though not devastating) shooter from distance. But it was just as clear that he wasn't ready -- either mentally or physically -- to play the kind of defense that's required in the Big East, night in and night out. From the sounds of it, anyway, Jamail has recognized the issue. Now we need to see whether those words get put into action.

Minimum Expectations: In my mind, anyway, there is absolutely no reason Jones can't be a 10-minute, 4-point, 3-rebound guy. Maybe that's setting the bar too low, but I'm a little concerned that Jamail's going to get caught in the same numbers crunch that caused him to sit out two-thirds of the conference games last season: Jae Crowder is locked into one of the starting forward spots, and I don't think it's going to take very long for Jamil Wilson to claim the other. (Bear in mind: I've been afflicted with a likely-terminal case of LUVS JAMIL WILSON.) With DJO entrenched at shooting guard, and with Vander Blue serving (in all likelihood) as the first guy off the bench ... where do you find 20 mpg for Jamail?

In My Wildest Dreams: Jamail got serious about making himself into a serviceable player on defense, with no ill effects on his strong game on offense. I don't think he's ever going to be on Lazar Hayward's level as a defender -- in my opinion, 'Zar quietly made himself into one of the better defenders we've seen at Marquette in the last 15 years -- but if Jones can figure out what he needs to do on the other end of the floor and rebound enough to earn his keep, he's a 25-minute, 13-point, 5-rebound guy.

But, just for sake of emphasis: that's my pie-in-the-sky, Rubie and Mrs. Q hire Evangeline Lilly as an au pair for the Q-berts-wildest dream.

In My Worst Nightmare: Jamail very much wants to turn himself into a serviceable player on defense and devotes himself to accomplishing that goal ... but it doesn't happen. Once again, Jones is relegated to mop-up duty against the Centenaries of the world, and he transfers somewhere down South to finish up his college career.

In other words, just as the Admiral wrote about Juan Anderson's worst-case scenario: he's Erik Williams. Sorry, E-Will.

Since we're a few years removed from his senior season of high school ball, it's easy to forget what a hot commodity redshirt sophomore Jamil Wilson was in 2008-'09.  A stellar junior season for Racine Horlick saw Wilson named to the All-State team, and coming into his senior year, Jamil had trimmed his list of potential college destinations to three: Michigan State, Oregon, and Texas. (He'd eliminated Marquette from consideration, you'll probably recall, after accusing Coach Buzz Williams of playing mind games with him in the fall of 2008.)

Another stellar season at Horlick (20.5 ppg, 9.9 rpg, 3.5 apg) made Wilson a unanimous choice for the All-State team, and, at the end of the day, Jamil was a four-star recruit ranked No. 94 overall by Rivals. In March 2009, Wilson surprised quite a few observers by deciding to play his college ball at Oregon and throwing in his lot with Coach Ernie Kent, who was rumored to be on the hot seat after limping through an 8-22 season and a 2-16 mark in the then-Pac 10 in 2008-'09.  The move, perhaps somewhat predictably, didn't work out well: Jamil managed a couple of decent performances in the non-conference schedule (including an 11-point, 7-rebound effort against Mizzou) but fell out of favor at the end of the year. Wilson didn't even get off the bench in six of Oregon's last nine games and ended the year with a forgettable 4.7 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 1.0 apg line.

Coach Kent was relieved of his duties at Oregon a week after the 2009-'10 season ended, which caused immediate speculation that some of his prize recruits might sprint for greener pastures. That was certainly true of Jamil Wilson, though there'd already been rumblings for weeks before that Wilson regretted his decision to move across the country and wanted to relocate closer to home. That bird came home to roost in June 2010, when Wilson decided to play ball 30 minutes from home at Marquette.

Minimum Expectations: This is a very difficult question to answer, given three things: (1) the (well-earned) pub Jamil got in high school; (2) the failure to live up to the pub in his freshman year in Eugene; and (3) the pub Jamil got during his redshirt year last season, when there were whispers that Wilson was the best player at Marquette's practices. In light of Items (1) and (3), I was about to set the Minimum Expectations bar at 12.5 ppg, 6.0 rpg. In light of Item (2), I'm ratcheting the bar down to 10.0 ppg, 5.0 rpg. But that's a minimum. Capiche?

In My Wildest Dreams: This question is also hard for me to answer, but for a different reason: I don't know when it happened, exactly, or why, or even how, but at some point along the line, I did a 180 on Wilson. You might remember that I was skeptical as hell when news first broke that Jamil was coming to Marquette. Now? He was the only player I was watching during Marquette Madness. I've drunk the Jamil Wilson Kool-Aid, and I've gone back for seconds and thirds, so I'm going to get a little nutty here:

The last time I heard the kind of "he's the best player in practice, and it's not even close" talk we heard about Jamil Wilson last year was in 2000-'01, when an unknown freshman named Dwyane Wade was sitting out the season as a partial qualifier.

Yeah. I went there.

In My Worst Nightmare: This one's easy: in my worst nightmare, Jamil Wilson is the second coming of Odartey Blankson. In case you're too lazy to click the link, here's what I'm talking about:

After two years at Marquette, "ODB" transferred to UNLV. He believed that leaving MU would get him a better role and closer to the NBA. This was a miscalculation, as he did not get drafted, and missed Marquette's Final Four run.

Officially Unofficial AE Sanctioned Nickname: I started kicking around "Son of Plastic Man" last week, since Wilson's lanky frame and spider-leg arms remind me a lot of former UNLV wing Stacey Augmon. But I'm not beholden to that one, by any means. What else ya got?