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Jon Rothstein Is A Complicated Man

The CBS Sports college basketball insider offered his thoughts on the key players in the Big East for 2014-15. He ended up leaving some people confused.

By Brewtown Andy
Deonte Burton is poised for a breakout season, according to Jon Rothstein.
Deonte Burton is poised for a breakout season, according to Jon Rothstein.
Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

Y'all have heard of Jon Rothstein before, right?  If you haven't actually seen one of his patented "So much [BLANK] in [BLANK]" comparisons, I'm sure you're seen people making fun of them at least.

Back on Tuesday, Rothstein gave his assessment of some of the key players in the Big East for this coming season in a series of tweets.  I'm going to skip over his pick for preseason Player of the Year (Darrun Hilliard) and sleeper team (Xavier), and get right to the parts that involve Marquette basketball.

Can't argue with the inclusion of Wilson on that list.  He has the advantage of seeing how much work has to go into a college hoops season, even though if he'll be making his debut for a different head coach.

Marquette's fortunes this year could largely be determined by Bane's sophomore season.  If he can play like he did last season while taking up major minutes for Steve Wojciechowski, he could turn himself into a candidate for Big East Player of the Year.

Hey, check it out, both of Marquette's eligible transfers made it onto the list!  Carlino should step in as the starting point guard immediately in November, and it seems reasonable to think that Fischer will become the starting center as soon as he's eligible in December.  It wasn't necessarily hard to identify them as key transfers given their trajectory towards the starting lineup, but they're still on the list.

So that's four Marquette players identified by Rothstein as key components on the conference level, and possibly even four of Marquette's starters by the end of the season, depending on how Wilson jumps into Division 1 basketball.  So Rothstein must be pretty enthusiastic about how Marquette will do this season, right?

Wrong.

Ninth.  One of the 10 best freshmen, one of the five players poised for a breakout season, and two of the five most important transfers, and that team's gonna finish ninth.  Wouldn't it stand to reason that if Wilson, Burton, Carlino, and Fischer all live up to the preseason billing that Rothstein has laid out, it should be virtually impossible for Marquette to finish ninth?  I'm not saying you have to pick MU to win the whole thing here, but c'mon, man.  If you like four of the 11 players that much, you gotta think the team as a whole is going to be better than that.

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