Marquette game thread

[Xavier2005]

Marquette took 68 FG attempts to X's 52 FG attempts, when you allow 16 more shots it kind of gives them more chances to score.

[Anti-Homer]

Outside of Colby and Hunter, disappointing but very gutsy performance by X. Missing one of the top bigs and 6-7th man in the league, they still almost beat a legitimate Top 10 team. The bad:

- Kunkel's ball security and shot selection. The degree of difficulty on a scale of 1-10 was about 11.2
- A rare, very bad point run by Boum. Up 3 with 45 seconds and the ball and they lose? I don't know why a T.O. wasn't called when MQuette did the same thing to Boum tat Providence did a week prior.
- Nunge played like a 6'6" 190lb center again. He was guarded by a slight, 6'9" center, but he was terrified of getting his shot blocked.
-Miller's lack of developing depth reared its ugly head.
Giving up 15 offensive rebounds and 10 more T.O.s

The good:

- A rare, very good defensive performance by Kunkel.
- Jones. Just another in a long line of warriors at X.
-Miller. He engineered another great game plan, but the execution just wasn't great.
-X's defense overall.

Again, 10 more T.O.s and giving up 11 more offensive rebounds missing two of your best seven players, and losing at the buzzer tells you how dangerous X is at full strength. I see X winning out. If Free is healthy by tourney time, X is poised for a serious run. Great to play great, in a great league, with a great coach.

[skyhops]

Miller made a big mistake by not calling a timeout when Boum was getting ready to turn the ball over in front of the bench. Nunge once again played like he was 6’ tall. The turnovers and lack of defensive rebounds were the main killer. The February curse continues.

[kyzrex]

“Miller’s lack of developing depth”

Man has to have something to work with in order to develop it. Can we all just now realize that Tandy, Edwards, Miles, and Tucker have no business being on a top 25 teams roster? It may take a couple of years but I’m confident that we won’t be seeing projects and suspects being a part of the roster in the future.

[edgecliff hall]

These "projects and suspects" played Marquette to a one point margin. I noticed it said XAVIER on their shirts.

[longliveskip]

this one stings more than the Butler loss. against Butler we were just TERRIBLE. this is a game when we were VERY short-handed vs the first place team in the BE, ON THE ROAD, and just pissed down our legs in the last 2 minutes. it's that simple. rebound misses and take care of the ball in crunch time. we did NEITHER of those. man, this one hurts.

[skyhops]

Still can’t handle a press. Agree on Miles, Edwards, KyKy, and Tucker just not BE players but we all know who recruiting and coached them. The game was lost the last mi the and that’s on Miller and Boum. Look forward to hopefully getting Free back. We need his rebounding

[bluegrass]

That was a tough one to lose. With no Freemantle or Claude I didn't think they had a chance.Then they have it literally in their hands to win it and give it away. It would have been a huge win to steal and put us in good shape to win the league. Boum- what can you say.He would have been the hero if we won.Now he's the goat for some terrible TOs with the game on the line. Three league losses by a total of 4 points. Brutal I'll be happy if we can win the remaining home games. Probably won't be enough to win the league but gives us a good seed in NYC and in March Madness.

[X-lucidity]

What can you say other than "shoulda-woulda-coulda" Great post above detailing the positives and negatives. I come away with more positives as I also was pleasantly shocked to see how well we hung in there and twice in 2nd half came back from a Marquette surge that put them 4 pts ahead with the fan base going berserk. So hell, we need some good fortune on the injury front or we are destined to have a similar path of our beloved Bengals once the O-Line broke down with injuries. It's really just that simple. Hoping the rumors that Free has little chance of returning are incorrect. As that would be a shame to not be able to see this group of warriors go dancing at full strength.

[Alpalpa]

Freemantle is gone, and you can’t replace his minutes and get the same amount of point and rebound production from those replacing him. And yet the Muskies faced a healthy Marquette team on their own home court with first place on the line and Claude missing on top of that, and it took some glaring mistakes by our guys AND the refs to loose this one BY ONE…with what was essentially a five man rotation. There’s a lot of good to glean from that.
And their defense has improved since Freemantle went down also.
In my mind, this points to some very positive things moving forward once Freemantle is back and into a rhythm, especially if that happens before the BE tournament. Win three or four of the last five and put a full, healthy better defensive team on the floor for the tournaments and I like our chances.