UWM and Marquette

After reading Nate’s thoughts on UWM and Marquette this morning, I had to give my two cents on the topic. I strongly disagree with you when you said you didn’t think UWM is a tournament team. The Panthers put together a 24-5 record while playing a tough schedule. In fact their schedule was far tougher than Marquette’s schedule. The Panthers beat Air Force and St. Louis, Manhattan, Purdue and Hawaii all on the road, had a one point road loss to Valparaiso, and gave Kansas all they could handle in Kansas (Kemper Area, not Phog Allen) before folding down the stretch and losing 73-62.

Having attended a few home games this season, including Tuesdays Title game, and watching nearly every televised game I can confidently tell you they are not they team they played like on Tuesday. You were right, they did play very poorly in that game, which was disappointing to see because they did the same thing in last years title game, but this year they got away with it.

Bruce Pearl summed it up perfectly after the game when he said “Detroit deserved to win that game, but we deserved to be conference champions!” You can’t argue with that, because this team was by far the class of the Horizon league. I know the league is not all that strong, but UIC, Detroit and UWGB (before they folded in the final five games) were all very strong teams. The Panthers ended the season going 16-2 in conference, losing to Green Bay on the road and suffering a tough home loss to Detroit early in the season. UWM ended the season winning 15 of their final 16 games.

I’m not going to say they will make it out of the first round, you have to wait and see who they draw before you can say anything like that, but the Panthers will be a tough out for any team that draws them. In 2002 they were awarded a 12 seed and as we all know lost to Notre Dame by a point when Dylan Page missed a lay-up as time expired. This season’s version of the Panthers is far superior to the 2002 team, and in my opinion deservingly should be awarded with an 11 seed, but will probably get a 13 or 14.

They have two go-to-guys in senior guard Ed McCants, and junior forward Joah Tucker. McCants was the Horizon League Player of the Year, and is the cousin of UNC‘s Rashad McCants. He is a very streaky shooter, and as most streaky shooters when he is on he can’t miss, but when he’s off he tends to throw up a lot of bad shots. Tucker is an absolute beast, and will follow in the footsteps of McCants this year, and Dylan Page last year by winning the Player of the Year next year. Tucker can shoot, defend, score in the post and take the ball to the hole. It was Tucker who was named the Horizon League Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, as he is starting to really come on as a force lately.

UWM is also blessed with having two very good second options in Boo Davis and Adrian Tigert. Davis is very much in the same mold as McCants. He’s a streaky three point shooter, but he is far more athletic than Ed. Adrian Tigert is the Panthers best low post option. He can score, but often times elects not to, that’s where his one flaw lies. He is too passive. For a big guy he can handle the ball very well, and has great court vision. Tigert is very similar to the player Dylan Page was for the Panthers last year.

The other strength of the Panthers game is their defense. They are a very athletic team who loves to play defense, but they don’t play the same kind of defense you see being played up in Madison. UWM plays a defense more like what you see Rick Pitino use in Louisville and when he was in Kentucky. They are a team who loves to press, and is very good at it. Milwaukee Vincent grad James Wright is arguably their best defender. At 6-6 Wright has an enormous wing-span and is the fastest player on the team. He is great at defending the inbounds pass, making it difficult for opposing players to get the ball in over him, and tremendous on the collapse down when they trap in the back court. Jason McCoy is another good lanky defender they have and use a lot. The Panthers love to get up and down the court, and force a lot of turnovers with their press style defense.

In regards to Marquette, I honestly have to say I no longer like them. I even went as far as rooting against them when they played yesterday. Marquette is a one trick pony, and that pony left the stable a few games ago. By that I think you know I mean Travis Deiner is their whole team. Their play yesterday was embarrassing to say the least. How can a division 1 team not break a press? No one on that team knew what to do when they were trapped.

I will admit I was a big Tom Crean fan in the early years. He did bring some excitement back to college basketball in Milwaukee. I was fully into Marquette’s final four run, I loved it. I loved Dwayne Wade, and loved Tom Crean, and I loved that team. But now, we are beginning to see just what a superstar player can do for your team. Dwayne Wade made a lot of guys look and play a lot better.

My love for Tom Crean is long gone. In fact, I just don’t like him. He is very overrated as a recruiter, and not as good of a coach we thought he was. How did Marquette not bring in any big recruits following the final four run? You went to the final four, appeared to have a young promising coach, you had a superstar like Dwayne Wade, and had good complimentary guys like Deiner and Steve Novak. That is just ridiculous. Ryan Amaroso was their big recruit on this year’s team. Yeah Ryan Amaroso, wow. By the way, can we stop comparing Dameon Mason to Dwayne Wade already.

Speaking of Wade, I’m sick of telling Marquette fans Tom Crean can’t recruit only to hear them say “oh yeah he can, he brought in Dwayne Wade!” STOP IT! He didn’t recruit Dwayne Wade. He took a flier on Wade. Wade was a big question mark academically, and any team who brought him in knew he would be ineligible his first year. He also wasn’t even that good in High School, he wasn’t even the best or most recruited guy on his own team, and I don’t even know where that guy is know. Crean had nothing to lose in taking a chance on him so he did it. It’s like Packer fans saying Mike Sherman made a great move by signing Grady Jackson. He had nothing to lose by trying it because their interior defense was so bad so he figured why not. There is a big difference in going out on the line for someone and taking a chance, and just saying why not, might as well try it.

Marquette in in huge trouble next year in the Big East. First of all they finished in 9th place in Conference USA. Conference USA. Secondly their whole team graduates in May, and by whole team I mean Travis Deiner. Is Wes Matthews going to be ready to contribute next year? Not the way they will need him to. Another problem is they have no big men. All of their incoming recruits are guards. They are going to get hammered in the Big East.

When you compare UWM to Marquette it’s definitely a tale of two very different teams. One is on the way up, and continually getting better, while the other has been on a downward spiral for the past two seasons and it only looks to be getting worse now.