Well, It’s Something: The Hauser Brothers Are Going To Not Wisconsin

We’ve been waiting a few weeks for the news of a destination after the announcement of the departure. According to sources close to Sam Hauser and Joey Hauser (themselves on Twitter, actually), our beloved Brothers Hauser will be taking their talents to Virginia and Michigan State, respectively. As a quick reminder, neither of those schools are Marquette.

You may have noticed that we had ourselves another edition of #DoneDealBachev (I’m sick of the -gate suffix. I’m going to make the final Soviet leader into a common scandal suffix if it’s the last thing I do). Three weeks ago some cornball named Erik said that the Hausers both going to Wisconsin was “basically a done deal”. Nice going, gym sock. I’m sure your listicle about Urban Meyer’s most likely landing spots will really break you into the sports media landscape. Was my unnecessary pettiness a result of deep-rooted sadness? Yes. Do I regret bringing Badger fans down to my level of sadness at all costs? Of course not. Was this all made even funnier when the Journal Sentinel’s UW beat writer claimed to have sources saying they were picking Wisconsin, and then had to backtrack on that, AND THEN went ahead and spoiled the Hausers’ announcement a few days ago? YEP.

Joey Hauser will probably be fighting more for minutes while in a Sparty uniform. As a younger and less proven player for a coach who tends to give heavy preference to upperclassmen, the younger Hauser might not see a ton of minutes right away after his year of sitting out. Once he works his way into the fold, he’ll have a chance to be the star scorer on a championship-caliber team. Hopefully things work out for him.

Sam’s road to success is a little more paved, so to speak. He has proven himself to be one of the deadliest sharpshooters in the country *pauses to take another whiskey shot to fight back the pain* and has slowly added a better ability to create opportunities for himself off the bounce. That type of skillset will play in any system. What’s more important for his success is how he can fit on defense.

Last week I shared my findings of the annual Marquette Defenders Crowdsourcing Project with you all. One of those findings was that Sam is a smart, strong, slightly speed-challenged player who also can’t match my alliterative skills. That is a perfect fit for a pack line system like Tony Bennett’s. He doesn’t have to worry as much about following his man step by step as much as he does being in the right spot to prevent penetration. I have no doubt that he’ll find immediate success in a a program that finally got rightful vindication in the form of a championship back in early April.

You might have noticed a pattern here. Maybe even one that you noticed weeks ago when this whole fiasco started. Joey and Sam left for an opportunity to win a championship for great coaches. It appears as though only one of those things applied to the program over Steve Wojciechowski. With the brothers, Marquette was bound to be one of the five best teams going into next year. The Hausers knew all this and decided to punt away a year of eligibility to jump into a situation of less certainty. This completely falls on the shoulders of the coach they leave behind. It shouldn’t be this hard to convince everyone in a locker room that staying on board for a championship run is a good thing.

Whatever. It’s not the Badgers so it could’ve been worse.