Let’s uh....yeah. How about we just try to forget about the last week? Our job as fans is to pay money to dedicate our time, energy and money to a business in order to make ourselves happy a couple times over our life, not make decisions. These nervous games where Marquette is on the brink of the utter obscurity known as the NIT can be useful. I’m personally a big time pacer. I could be an Olympic fastwalker or whatever with the way I’m juking coffee tables during games. You can learn how to be a professional fidget spinner, if that exists, or maybe pick up on ventriloquism. I don’t know or even care really. I don’t even see how many clicks I get on these things, so I don’t even have an artificial connection to you. I’m just trying to make my Twitter feed less gloomy for my own benefit. So be cheerful.

Current KenPom/T-Rank Rankings

Seton Hall: #29/#23

Marquette: #50/#42

Heton Sall (That’s a top tier spoonerism) Stat Leaders

Points: Desi Rodriguez, 17.4 PPG

Offensive Rebound Percentage: Angel Delgado, 15.7% (This is 7th in the country if knowing the context of numbers is a hobby for you)

Defensive Rebound Percentage: Angel Delgado, 28.0% (15th in the country).

Assist Rate: Khadeen Carrington, 24.0% (239th in the country)

Marquette Stat Leaders

Points: Markus Howard, 21.6 PPG

Offensive Rebound Percentage: Harry Froling, 11.6% (He’s not qualified still, but that number would be around the 125 range if he were)

Defensive Rebound Percentage: Harry Froling, 24.3% (Same situation, he’d probably be around 150 if he were qualified)

Assist Rate: Andrew Rowsey, 25.1% (202nd in the country)

Marquette Last 10 Games: 4-6

Seton Hall Last 10 Games: 6-4. It’s like you’re my mirror....whoa. I actually don’t like that song. Not huge into Justin Timberlake either. I love his voice, but his songs never really clicked with me. He had a chance at redemption during the Super Bowl and might have turned in the worst performance of all time. A disgrace!

All Time Series: Marquette leads, 18-7.

Current Streak: Marquette is on a one game winning streak after the home win a couple weeks ago.

Ranking The Cakes (or parts of them) Mentioned In Jay-Z’s Second Verse On Drake’s “Pound Cake”

5. Upside-down cake. I’ve never had it, to be honest, but they look gross.

4. Icing. It’s definitely good when used in the right proportion, but I’ve had too many cakes that just pile it on like Bruce Pearl and NCAA allegations.

3. Round/clown. They aren’t really types of cakes, but round cakes and cakes with a clown on them are common enough for Hov to mention them. I’m assuming they’re standard multi-tiered cakes, vanilla or chocolate. I’m fine with either of them if I have a small little piece after dessert, but they’re so damn filling. If you bring one to a party and only half of it is eaten, then you’re stuck with it for another week until you finally eat it all. That’s how you get ants.

2. Pound. A nice, lightweight treat.

1. Carrot. Third best cake, behind german chocolate and cookie. If you disagree, send me your address so I can come fight you.

Basketball

Correct. Seton Hall is starting to play a little better. I know our lord and savior/cult leader Brewtown Andy is not a believer in the hype of them being a great team, but they’re still a good/very good team. The margin of their Villanova game on Sunday is not indicative of how well they actually played. They had an absolutely dreadful offensive stretch that began with a 20 point bludgeoning at the hands of Marquette, but they’ve all but fully bounced back from that.

On a hunch, I would guess that Andrew Rowsey doesn’t start. I’ve been a bit hard on a guy that has overall succeeded at performing on big stages while I would probably throw up if I even had to walk across the court with 20,000 people staring at me, but he has been struggling the most lately. Even though all of the Treys Amigos have been slumping, Rowsey is probably the one they are best equipped at succeding without. Markus Howard is a more complete offensive player and less awful at defense while Sam Hauser’s size is a necessity. I have no doubt that Rowsey will bounce back and perform at his normal level, but they’re not in a position to give him the immediate reps necessary to make that happen quicker. So I think he’ll be on a short leash.

If Greg Elliott were to get the starting nod, it would behoove the defense to press more. The Pirates are prone to turning the ball over and the added length could cause some real havoc for them. Marquette’s turnover trend on offense isn’t as bad as I originally thought, but they’re still been about league average the last couple games when they’re normally around top 50. This trend should take a break, though, since Seton Hall is not particularly great at forcing turnovers either.

Otherwise, Seton Hall has solid shot defense and are able to effectively hit twos and threes on offense. One of the keys in the previous meeting was Matt Heldt’s ability to completely lock down Delgado and the team rebounding effort to limit the team’s largest strength of grabbing their own misses. It’s a lot to ask for them to do that twice, but just like my great grandpappy said on his deathbed, “You gotta play well to win.”

I do think that Marquette has a chance to pull this off. If they can find a way to keep it within a couple possessions at the end, anything can happen. Maybe a cow walks on the court. You never know.

I had a bit of a rant typed out about how “coaching adjustments” aren’t only limited to going from a man to a zone or changing the lineup and that Wojo isn’t a stubborn idiot just because he hasn’t done them yet. I’ll just end by trying to state to you, the fellow fan, that anticipating a top 25 team a year ahead is a sign that something is being done well with the coach as opposed to a sign that this is the last straw.