Oscar Gamble Society

I have to post about the Marquette game.  Yes, I realize that this may be a sour grapes whiny post, but it needs to be said.  Let’s start with the season in general.  I can’t remember a more disappointing ending to a season of any team that I have ever followed…. including the 1997 Packers.  A little background on Marquette… they are a level below the elite programs like Kansas, Memphis, Carolina, Duke, Kentucky…. I realize that.  Marquette is able to recruit 4 star prospects, but they will only be able to recruit top tier talent in certain years, when they have open starting positions.  They will never be able to recruit enough depth to be a truly elite squad.
When you can only attract 2^nd Round NBA talent (D-Wade excluded), it is possible to assemble a team like the 2008-9 Marquette Warriors.  They had 3 senior guards that had played 120+ games together, and all have the ability to play at the next level.  Throw in a scoring power forward in Lazar Hayward, and Marquette became a very dangerous team this year.  They were playing very well and were ranked #8 in the nation, and were leading the Big East conference (inarguably the best conference in the country this year).  The last 4 games of the year had Marquette playing Syracuse, UConn, Pitt and Louisville.  3 minutes into game 1, Dominic James broke his foot.  James is the leader of Marquette, and is the key to the defense.  He is the best defensive point guard in the country, and has greatly improved in his four years at Marquette.  Of course, the 4 teams they played all had top point guards that took advantage of the loss of James.  AJ Price lit up Marquette for 34, Johnny Flynn single handedly won the Syracuse game, Lavance Fields opened up a tie game with 10 min left to win for Pitt, and Andre McGee had a career game for Louisville.
Despite losing at the buzzer to Villanova in the Big East tourney, a close loss at Louisville (4), an OT loss to Syracuse, Marquette went 1-5 down the stretch and became a 6 seed, when a 1 seed was well within reach prior to the injury to James.  Marquette wins against Utah State, and then takes on Missou…. Here is where I am really gonna whine.   James made a miraculous recovery from his broken foot, and played 17 minutes, but clearly was no more than 30% healthy.  The game came down to the last possession.  Tie game… Missou ball.  JT Tiller drives the lane, and draws a foul.  Clearly it was a charge, but whatever, that isn’t the worst of it.  Tiller comes up lame and is too injured to shoot the free throws.  Apparently, that means that anyone can shoot, and Mizzou picks their hottest shooter, English to hit the 2 free throws….. .but here is where I really got pissed.   Tiller was able to return to the game at that point….WTF?!?  He is too hurt to shoot his foul shots, but 25 seconds later he is good to go to play defense.  That is an unbelievably terrible rule that instantly needs to be changed.  Then to make matters worse, Marquette (+3.5) steps on the end line, Mizzou makes 2 more FTs, and Acker gets hacked badly on the last shot, with no foul called….Marquette loses by 4.UGHUGHUGHUGHUGH

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 6:07 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.