Scrambled Eggs - Marquette Basketball

The Most Bubbly Bubble Team to Ever Bubble

We'll make this summary quick, because Joe put together a great viewing guide. We talk Creighton and senior day, what our tournament fate looks like, how #mubb will play in the Big East tournament and then analyze who we want to win and/or lose for MU to get in. #noredforOwen makes an appearance as well. Enjoy!

 

BUBBLE ROOTING GUIDE

 

Note: This rooting guide did not take into account small RPI points, strength of schedule boosts and other metrics. So, there may be some slight inaccuracies for that reason. This is simply bubble teams you want to lose and rooting against potential bid thieves.

 

Pac-12

It is alarming how close this “power conference” league is to being a one-bid league. Arizona is the only team not sweating Selection Sunday (now, the FBI is another story).

Root for: Arizona. Arizona State is also probably in, but I’d advise them to not lose early and make it interesting. Marquette fans, you’d much prefer Arizona to win this tournament. You are also rooting for Oregon State, not to win, but to pick off a couple bubble teams.

Root against: Washington, USC, UCLA and Utah. What’s weird is that USC, UCLA, and Utah are the 2, 3, and 4 seeds, respectively. So, the odds are at least a couple of this teams will pad their resumes enough to feel safe. Oregon State can do Marquette a big favor by picking off Washington in the 7-10 game and then USC.

 

SEC

While the SEC may not have a team get a top two NCAA seed, it has quite a few teams that are comfortably in and Marquette fans should feel okay with winning  the SEC tournament.

Root for: Tennessee, Auburn, Florida, Arkansas, Texas A&M to win it. Root for LSU to pull a couple upsets then go down. LSU would be a bid thief if it wins the whole thing.

Root against: Mississippi State, Alabama. Pull for LSU to take down Mississippi State in the 7-10 game. Alabama may be in regardless, but having the Tide go down to A&M wouldn’t be a bad result. Even though he’s not playing, rooting for a team with Duane Wilson on it is always easy for Marquette fans.

 

ACC

This should be easy for Marquette fans, because there are some teams in here that Marquette would root against no matter what.

Root for: The top seeds, just to avoid a bid thief. Duke and North Carolina are fine. Even if you don’t like Virginia, the Cavs winning is also a positive result. Root for Pitt to get an upset or two, just because it would be hilarious.

Root against: Syracuse, Notre Dame, Louisville. Again, these are all teams you’d probably root against anyway. Notre Dame is definitely an interesting case for the committee due to how good the Irish have been when healthy. However, the Irish resume is less than ideal. A first round exit to Pitt would be the nail in the coffin for the Irish. Syracuse losing to 14 seed Wake would be a great result for Marquette. Louisville has Florida State in an 8-9 game. The Cardinals may be in either way, but an early Louisville exit is certainly not a bad thing as far as Marquette is concerned.

 

Big 12

The Big 12 is a deep league and should definitely have seven or eight teams in. Marquette, though, is obviously rooting for seven instead of eight.

Root for: Kansas winning this thing in KC is a regular occurrence, and that would be fine with us. Texas Tech or West Virginia would also be acceptable. If you’re looking at it from a Big East perspective, an early Kansas exit may increase the likelihood of Xavier and Villanova both getting 1 seeds, but we’re just talking Marquette things here.

Root against: Lots of bubble teams: Baylor, Kansas State, Texas, and maybe even Oklahoma are sweating right now. Texas losing to Iowa State would be a disaster for the ‘Horns. I know we don’t like rooting for ISU, but suck it up and do it just this once. (Although, I feel for Texas, considering Andrew Jones is battling cancer. For that reason, I’d like to see Texas dance, not at Marquette’s expense, but the Longhorns are easy to like.) Oklahoma is still probably in, but losing to Oklahoma State would be bad for the Sooners. I am on the record that, if Marquette has to go to Dayton, let’s get nuts and play the Sooners. Trae Young vs. MU’s shooters would be wild, like a 115-113 final. But for these purposes, root for Oklahoma State to take down OU before losing to Kansas. I’m pretty sure OSU is out, but let’s not get any more teams in the bubble discussion.

 

Big Ten

Oh wait, they’re done. Bubble teams Penn State and Nebraska are biting their nails for a week.

 

Elsewhere

Loyola Chicago winning the MVC on Sunday was a nice result for Marquette, as it guarantees Loyola Chicago won’t enter the at-large discussion. Even if MU may have a better resume, more teams to talk about is bad.

 

Wichita State is definitely the team you want in the American, but Houston or (grits teeth) Cincinnati would also be fine because they’re both locks. No one else in the American is acceptable. Temple scares me a little as a team talented enough to run through the AAC. And I don’t care how bad they are, UConn has done this crap before. So, beware.

 

In the Mountain West, Nevada is critical. The Wolfpack is a lock to make the dance. Boise State is on the wrong side of the bubble, and no one else in the MWC is close. I’m not sure Boise State can play its way to an at-large. Let’s keep this simple: Go Nevada!

 

As always, the WCC must be Gonzaga or Saint Mary’s. They’re both comfortably in the field, especially Gonzaga. So, root for the Zags, settle for Saint Mary’s. Any other result is bad.

 

In the Atlantic 10, pull hard for Rhode Island. St. Bonaventure is a bubble team that has a very good shot at being in. So, the Bonnies winning is something you could stomach I suppose, but seeing them go down early and sweat is a more preferable result. No one else in the Atlantic 10 is close to an at-large. Again, we’ll keep it simple: Pull for the Rams.

 

Finally, our old home of Conference USA. Middle Tennessee is the one you want here. Western Kentucky and Old Dominion have nice records but probably aren’t playing their way to an at-large bid. Similar to Loyola Chicago before Sunday, the Blue Raiders should be in the field but may be out with an early exit. The possibility that they could be added to the at-large field is not something Marquette wants. Fewer teams in the at-large discussion is better, so go Middle Tennessee!

 

Finally, the most important team in the rooting guide: MARQUETTE! Your Golden Eagles could make this very easy with a deep run at MSG. They have only reached the Big East semifinals twice since joining the league, and they’ve only won more than one game three times. Marquette has been one-and-done five times in Big East Tournament history. So, Marquette is due, right? Here’s to hoping for a run to the Big East title game, which means we just wrote all this for nothing!

The red flashing light? I'ts the not gonna make the tournament warning light, and it's just gone into overdrive

Not even sure where to start with this post, it was not good before now with a loss to DePaul it is likely over. So we are going to talk about what went wrong in Chicago and what was Wojo thinking. After we go through all the woulda, coulda, shouldas, we turn to the impact this loss has on a potential NCAA bid. We then talk about the next week and whether or not Marquette can win both games to even give them a shot at a tournament bid. We then talk about our favorite memories from the BC since this will be the last regular season game before moving to the new arena. Lastly we spend some time talking about the reports this week regarding bag dropping and cheating by various programs from the vantage point of Marquette. It was not great, but still....Enjoy!

Wait, playing a single small guard and a 2-3 zone worked? Why didn't we think of that???

We are absolutely going to take that win and run with it, but it left us with a lot of questions, some of them angry. First, at the time of recording we knew nothing of the prognosis for Markus Howard so instead of going all local news and having a Sunday night news teaser that made it sound like we know what was going on with him but it turned out we had no idea whatsoever......we aren't going to do that[rant off/]. So we talk about the injury and what we know as well as the possible impact it could have on the rest of the season. We also talk about why did it take Howard's pelvis exploding for Wojo to actually go to a line-up/defense that made sense for this team? Finally, we talk about the next week of basketball and whether #mubb can win two more. It's gonna be an interesting week to be sure, so listen up and get ready for a roller coaster. Enjoy!

Have you ever seen the rain comin' down on a sunny day? #mubb edition

We went with a little CCR for the pod title because we are trying to unpack what we just experienced with the saddest 1-1 week that included a road win over a top 40 opponent. What do we make of the win against Seton Hall and then watch Wojo get out coached by Chris Mullen? I'm not saying we're having an existential crisis but we certainly aren't not having an existential crisis. We break down the two games and talk about what we learned and how it projects for the last 5 games of the regular season. We talk about what, if anything, Wojo actually does different over the next 5 games and how much we can actually look at positively from the season to date. We make some predictions on the Creighton game and how that may foretell the rest of the season. We close out by talking about an old friend, Duane Wilson, and the unfortunate end to his season. Maybe CCR was singing about the #mubb defense: 'Til forever, on it goes. Through the circle, fast and slow. I know! It can't stop, I wonder.

 

Enjoy!

It was a bad week, was it the worst one in the Wojo era?

Not much of a synopsis this week. We basically have a long therapy session about the state of the program under Wojo after a very bad week of basketball against Butler and Providence. It's a tough pod but hopefully one that helps us get our heads right. Enjoy

It was a rough, but not unexpected week for #mubb

Well, it wasn't the week we were hoping for (especially against Xavier) but it also did nothing to damage #mubb tournament chances. We start with the most recent game against Villanova (most because neither one of really wanted to talk about the Xavier boondoggle). We talk about what the performance against Villanova and whether the loss is the fault of the officiating (spoiler alert, they didn't help but they weren't to blame). We also discuss why we can't get the Tres Amigios to play well at the same time. To cleanse the palate a little we highlight the continuing improvement from Harry Froling and Sacar Amin, who both had an excellent game. To wrap up the podcast we spend some time analyzing the up coming week with critical home games against Butler and Providence. We give predictions, one us thinks the team goes 2-0 and it's not who you think. As always, enjoy!

Break is over, time to get back to the grind for #mubb

It was a seemingly very long 9 day break from Marquette basketball, but they're back this week and so is the podcast. For having 9 days off we sure have a lot to talk about. First, we have the pleasant surprise of Joey Hauser (you may know his brother) 2018 commit actually enrolling in school this semester and taking a voluntary red shirt so he'll have 4 years of eligibility starting in the fall. We spend talking about that and whether it's a good or great thing. We then spend as little time as possible reviewing the actual DePaul game which may have been the worst game #mubb played all season. Then we talk about the tough upcoming week with a road trip to Xavier and a big home clash with national #1 Villanova. We discuss what we expect to be different in these repeat match-ups and look ahead to the rest of the schedule to determine just how important this week is. We close out by giving our predictions and highlighting the need for one of Marquette's own Tori McCoy. As detailed by Anonymous Eagle Tori needs a kidney transplant and Marquette has started a GoFundMe to support her. If you can please support Tori in her time of need. On that note, let's go out and one at least one of these games and start the second half of the conference season off on a great note. Enjoy!

We got what we needed out of the past week, let's beat DePaul and rest up

#mubb went 1-1 this week and looked great against Seton Hall while reverting to defensive form against Butler so we're going to declare that a successful but not spectacular week. We're going to start with the good and discuss they shockingly great defensive effort against the top team in the Big East(at the time) Seton Hall. We try to understand what changed and how it can be carried into future games. What is clear is that #mubb would not carry it into the next game against Butler where the interior defense was more useless than the Maginot line (yes that's a WWII joke, whatever). We discuss the Butler game and what went wrong and what positives we can take away from it. A positive we can take away from that game and the season really, has been the play of Sam Hauser. Seemingly lost in the flashy play of the lead guards for Marquette, Sam has managed to put together a strong offensive game while also being our best interior defender if not best defender period. So we talk about how efficient his offense has been. We also have a shotout for Matt Heldt, most efficient man in the NCAA. We wrap up the podcast with a discussion of the DePaul(just don't lose to them) and some odds and ends. As always, enjoy!

So we should probably spend some time talking about Markus Howard

So the week turned out exactly how we thought it would, #mubb went 1 and 1 with a win over Providence and a tough loss to Villanova, ho hum not much to talk about. Just kidding, of course we are going to carry on for 25 minutes about Markus Howard's historic 52 point performance and his equally impressive 37 points and 8 assists against Villanova. In fact, we spend time talking about where the performance against Providence ranks in modern MU single player performance pantheon. Once even we've had enough of talking about Markus, we do breakdown the Providence and Villanova games to talk about what we liked and didn't like from the games. Finally, we turn ahead to this week, which is another must go 1 and 1 week, previewing the Seton Hall and Butler games. I'd take another 89 points from Markus this week, but let's hope we don't have to for at least one win. Enjoy!

Happy New Year and mostly happy start to Big East play

Happy New Year! Hope everyone has recovered from the holidays and is ready to talk #mubb basketball. First we discuss the old year, and the mixed results of the first two games of conference play. We break down the Xavier and Georgetown games including is the defense getting better and how worried should we be about Markus Howard's slump. We then transition to the new year and the brutal next 7 games on Marquette's schedule and what our expectations should be. We then get into a conversation about the next two games, @Providence and @Villanova and our expectations for those games. We close out the pod with a brief remembrance of broadcast legend, Dick Enberg, who had multiple connections to Marquette. Enjoy!