sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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No students officially but I noticed a decent contingent in the usual area. The SSS was there, as was a decent turnout of cheerleaders. They were short some men and a women was pressed into service to carry the S flag during the traditional running of the flags. S woman did a fine job, kept up with S, C and U and all women throughout the world should, IMHO, feel proud and liberated at this time. If they weren't feeling that way already.
The NA was sung by a couple of college students. One was from SU, one from OCC. Both were Skaneatleans. They did a good job, sang acapella in harmony, thought the arrangement mostly worked. It is great to see people overcome their humble origins. Go Lakers!
Watching the teams warm up, it was apparent Marquette was a really undersized team, who was going to rely on muscles and fat to try and overcome height and athletic ability. They do have a bunch of athletic guards but not much in the way of centers or power forwards. Johnson-Odom and Blue in particular are impressive at driving to the basket and scoring or drawing fouls.
Glad to see Keita looking normal in the pregame warm-ups. After a collision during the game, he started limping noticeably and lost something. He also lost some battles with Davante Gardner, the 300 pound MU center, who actually pushed him under the basket and all the way 3 feet out of bounds on one MU offensive possession (no call).
The refs really let the teams play early, which was to Marquette's advantage. They play an in your face man to man defensive style where they stand as close as possible to their man and actively push, hold and nudge him to try and get the ball loose. Similar style to Pitt's famous clutch and grab. It makes for horrible game watching...really an ugly defensive style. Almost guarantees that they will get a couple of bogus calls as players with the ball try and get free from the aggressive defense and may possibly hit an MU player with an elbow accidentally. I believe this happened last year at least once and refs reviewed tape for this several times again today. Might be the worst rule introduced in recent years, thought the rules committee has made a number of really idiotic moves recently to make this a hard call.
As play got more and more ragged, and SU players started to retaliate to make the aggression of the MU defense, I thought a fight was going to happen. Bad refs lead to a loss of control of the game which leads to extreme frustation and fights. Tim Higgins was content to waddle far from the action, way out of position and think about what he was going to eat for dinner during this period, so he was no help.
Fortunately, the refs started calling the game tighter, reacting to SU's response to MU and the game got more like basketball again. That was bad news for Marquette. They are not a good offensive team. Not much in the way of offensive sets, not much in the way of long or mid range jumpers, bad half court offense, no low post presence, little or no ability to rebound on the offensive side. They have a lot of issues. Really, the only way they reliably score is off transition baskets (they do have some nice finishers). Crowder is a really annoying player...Jonny on the spot, nice hustler, supreme garbage man. He hit a 3 to get MU close in the 2nd half and had the temerity to put his finger to his lips to 'shoosh' the crowd. Not good dude. I see why you had to go to JUCO.
The big run in the 1st half that blew the game open was keyed, as all the big runs this season have been, with some great defense. MU did not score a basket in more than 11 minutes and had a hard time even getting a shot off a number of times.
Melo returned to the game after early foul trouble and helped fuel the charge with solid rebounding and defense, drawing a couple of big charges to get key MU personnel in foul trouble. Triche continued to play at a high level, rebounding, passing and shooting well again. CJ snaked around, getting important baskets and rebounds from time to time and Kris again made some big 3s when they were really needed.
MU also pressed quite a bit. Was not very effective. Ended up helping to get them in serious foul trouble. SU did not try man and did not try to press.
JB subbed pretty freely in the 1st half, though MCW was shunned. In the 2nd half, he reverted to old school ways and played his favorite lineup of DW, BT, CJ, KJ and FM/BK for an extended period. He eventually subbed out BT for Scoop as well. We got tired but as usual, we played good enough to get the W.
Scoop did not have a good game, forced some shots, made some crazy decisions, going 1 on 5 at one time with SU up big. Dion had a bad start but finished strong...he is emerging as our best player in crunch time. His block of a Johnson-Odom 3 point jumper that he turned into a layup was probably the biggest play of the game, and probably clinches Dion as the best trash talker in the conference for this season. Would be remiss not to mention Keita, who had 4 really important points when MU was very close to catching SU. No JS in the 2nd half, no MCW in the game period. Christmas played a few minutes, got in foul trouble, missed an easy short shot and was not a factor. The Lights on the Lake go down tonight. Alas, it is no longer Christmas season.
While I was not impressed with MU's half court offense, I think they play very good defense and will be able to scrape together enough points to win their share of conference games. I am thinking they are heading for a 10-6 BE record. Maybe even 11-5.
Crowd was good. Pretty lively, made some noise. Got into the game when MU made their run and I think the noise may have helped unnerve MU and disrupted their run. Good win. MU gave us a great effort and I think playing them is great preparation for playing Pitt, Nova and UConn, other offensively challenged teams that will give up problems. Playing another close game is helpful too.
Will be interesting to see how many come out for the VU game and how many are wearing orange. Could we bring as many fans as the troubled Cats? If the game were on the weekend, absolutely. We will find out soon.
The NA was sung by a couple of college students. One was from SU, one from OCC. Both were Skaneatleans. They did a good job, sang acapella in harmony, thought the arrangement mostly worked. It is great to see people overcome their humble origins. Go Lakers!
Watching the teams warm up, it was apparent Marquette was a really undersized team, who was going to rely on muscles and fat to try and overcome height and athletic ability. They do have a bunch of athletic guards but not much in the way of centers or power forwards. Johnson-Odom and Blue in particular are impressive at driving to the basket and scoring or drawing fouls.
Glad to see Keita looking normal in the pregame warm-ups. After a collision during the game, he started limping noticeably and lost something. He also lost some battles with Davante Gardner, the 300 pound MU center, who actually pushed him under the basket and all the way 3 feet out of bounds on one MU offensive possession (no call).
The refs really let the teams play early, which was to Marquette's advantage. They play an in your face man to man defensive style where they stand as close as possible to their man and actively push, hold and nudge him to try and get the ball loose. Similar style to Pitt's famous clutch and grab. It makes for horrible game watching...really an ugly defensive style. Almost guarantees that they will get a couple of bogus calls as players with the ball try and get free from the aggressive defense and may possibly hit an MU player with an elbow accidentally. I believe this happened last year at least once and refs reviewed tape for this several times again today. Might be the worst rule introduced in recent years, thought the rules committee has made a number of really idiotic moves recently to make this a hard call.
As play got more and more ragged, and SU players started to retaliate to make the aggression of the MU defense, I thought a fight was going to happen. Bad refs lead to a loss of control of the game which leads to extreme frustation and fights. Tim Higgins was content to waddle far from the action, way out of position and think about what he was going to eat for dinner during this period, so he was no help.
Fortunately, the refs started calling the game tighter, reacting to SU's response to MU and the game got more like basketball again. That was bad news for Marquette. They are not a good offensive team. Not much in the way of offensive sets, not much in the way of long or mid range jumpers, bad half court offense, no low post presence, little or no ability to rebound on the offensive side. They have a lot of issues. Really, the only way they reliably score is off transition baskets (they do have some nice finishers). Crowder is a really annoying player...Jonny on the spot, nice hustler, supreme garbage man. He hit a 3 to get MU close in the 2nd half and had the temerity to put his finger to his lips to 'shoosh' the crowd. Not good dude. I see why you had to go to JUCO.
The big run in the 1st half that blew the game open was keyed, as all the big runs this season have been, with some great defense. MU did not score a basket in more than 11 minutes and had a hard time even getting a shot off a number of times.
Melo returned to the game after early foul trouble and helped fuel the charge with solid rebounding and defense, drawing a couple of big charges to get key MU personnel in foul trouble. Triche continued to play at a high level, rebounding, passing and shooting well again. CJ snaked around, getting important baskets and rebounds from time to time and Kris again made some big 3s when they were really needed.
MU also pressed quite a bit. Was not very effective. Ended up helping to get them in serious foul trouble. SU did not try man and did not try to press.
JB subbed pretty freely in the 1st half, though MCW was shunned. In the 2nd half, he reverted to old school ways and played his favorite lineup of DW, BT, CJ, KJ and FM/BK for an extended period. He eventually subbed out BT for Scoop as well. We got tired but as usual, we played good enough to get the W.
Scoop did not have a good game, forced some shots, made some crazy decisions, going 1 on 5 at one time with SU up big. Dion had a bad start but finished strong...he is emerging as our best player in crunch time. His block of a Johnson-Odom 3 point jumper that he turned into a layup was probably the biggest play of the game, and probably clinches Dion as the best trash talker in the conference for this season. Would be remiss not to mention Keita, who had 4 really important points when MU was very close to catching SU. No JS in the 2nd half, no MCW in the game period. Christmas played a few minutes, got in foul trouble, missed an easy short shot and was not a factor. The Lights on the Lake go down tonight. Alas, it is no longer Christmas season.
While I was not impressed with MU's half court offense, I think they play very good defense and will be able to scrape together enough points to win their share of conference games. I am thinking they are heading for a 10-6 BE record. Maybe even 11-5.
Crowd was good. Pretty lively, made some noise. Got into the game when MU made their run and I think the noise may have helped unnerve MU and disrupted their run. Good win. MU gave us a great effort and I think playing them is great preparation for playing Pitt, Nova and UConn, other offensively challenged teams that will give up problems. Playing another close game is helpful too.
Will be interesting to see how many come out for the VU game and how many are wearing orange. Could we bring as many fans as the troubled Cats? If the game were on the weekend, absolutely. We will find out soon.
