|
January 5, 2009 - Monday 3:43 AM
 |
Current mood:  refreshed Category: Sports
Hello, denizens of The Bubbler. I'm watching the ...
... wait, Jerel McNeal just hit another three.
Woah.
Today's Marquette victory over Cincinnati was one of those wins that just kind of made you go, "Whoa."
 I did say yesterday that I thought Marquette wouldn't have much trouble with the Bearcats, who have a lot of raw pieces but only started one senior and are quite young when compared to Marquette. Nonetheless, this was the kind of game I've been waiting for Marquette to play for a while, and it came against an opponent whose name recognition alone gives it a lot of credence.
No, these are not your father's Bearcats, or, more notably, not Bobby Huggins'. But they're still Cincinnati and they're still a Big East opponent. They still beat Texas Southern by 31 and have wins against UNLV and UAB. They still have a lot of size and, on the basis of personnel alone, would be the kind of team I would be afraid of this Marquette team losing to if they had a little more experience.
Instead, Marquette played 25 minutes of unbeatable basketball today and blew the Bearcats right back to Cincy, sans plane.
Really, who shoots 60 percent from outside? I know, the answer is Marquette, but c'mon. That was almost ridiculous today. Four threes for Lazar Hayward, fresh from a five-three performance against Villanova? Two for Wes Matthews. One apiece for Dominic James and Maurice Acker?
And, perhaps most stunningly, seven threes for Jerel McNeal?
I know he's a good shooter. But seven threes? That's not human. It's hard to go 7-for-7 just shooting in practice. McNeal did it with the Bearcats' defense ... well, somewhat close to him.
In all seriousness, the first six or seven minutes of this game concerned me. Yancy Gates is going to be a beast when he gets a few more pounds and years on his frame. He was having his way with Marquette early on and all it appeared the Golden Eagles could do was foul him. Cincinnati had the early edge big-time in the rebounding category and it almost looked like Marquette had forgotten how to defend the post.
We got an early taste of something I've been discussing: The fact that Jimmy Butler reminds me a lot of Lazar Hayward as a freshman. Hayward got two quick fouls, forcing Butler to play the four-spot Hayward usually occupies. Butler looked a little lost at times, letting a man cut to the basket wide open during one possession, but did alright on the offensive end.
Furthermore, we saw Dominic James struggle a little defensively in the first half as well. The Bearcats had Marquette well scouted and used a lot of screens to force Marquette to switch defenders often. Dion Dixon and Deonta Vaughn were running off baseline screens and James was caught trailing a lot.
Sometimes, though, it's as simple as who shoots the ball better. When Gates drew his second foul and was forced to the bench, it changed the complexion of the game. Steve Toyloy and Anthony McClain were nowhere near as skillful as Gates was down low, forcing the Bearcats to try and shoot from outside. The three-point shooting for Cincinnati was pitiful today, though, as the Bearcats hit on just 1-of-9 threes in the first half and got just two more in the second. Not only was Cincinnati missing, they were missing badly. Vaughn and Dixon were hitting the far-side of the rim, the foam on the underside of the basket and pretty much anything else that was attached to the basket and wasn't the inside of the net. I heard a rumor they thought about rolling up the Bradley Center's Admirals' banners in the second half, just in case.
Meanwhile, McNeal already had five of his threes before they brought Laura Boyer out for today's halftime ceremony.
(Congrats to Boyer, by the way, on winning Marquette's prestigious McCahill Award. She was a stellar keeper for the Marquette Women's Soccer team and I had the pleasure of getting to introduce her during her final season in blue and gold.)
While nothing would fall for Cincy, everything the Eagles threw up went through the basket, including another one-footed, end-of-the-half prayer, this one off the hand of Maurice Acker. Marquette has hit one of these in three different home games this season, to the point where you would think teams would start realizing you need to defend those shots because MU hits them.
 As well-scouted as the Bearcats seemed to have the Marquette half-court offense and defense (they did a real good job of anticipating locations and jumping to spots), they seemed to really get away from their gameplan when it came to getting the ball down low, as well as forget about what Marquette can do when they distribute the ball well. You've gotta pop out on Golden Eagles taking three-pointers. Worse comes to worse, they'll make a ball-fake and try and drive, but that at least gives you time to recover. Cincinnati was nowhere near active enough with their feet and they paid the price. Marquette was clearly the superior team athletically, as well as with their shooting.
Oh, and one more thing you don't want to let Marquette do: Go on a confidence-building run that includes a huge highlight. There's too much energy in the Bradley Center and Marquette can do way too much when they've got a lot of confidence.
The gameday script for Marquette games has a number of songs they can play when the opposing team calls a timeout -- Cotton-Eyed Joe, Kernkraft 400, etc. At one point today, after a tremendous dribble-drive and dish by Jerel McNeal to a slashing Wes Matthews for a layup, just a fantastic team effort after a tremendous ball-fake by McNeal, the Bearcats called time out. You kind of knew the Bearcats weren't coming back when Matthews picked out that the song of choice in this particular break was Jump Around and he started emploring the fans to get jumpin' by heaving his arms up and down to the rhythm before he headed into the huddle. When things like that start happening -- when you get the big threes, the big dishes, the impressive passes, the half-court baseball tosses that lead directly to layups (there was another one today) -- and you start seeing a lot of Marquette chest-thumping and fan interaction ...
... it's like the video they show at the end of halftime. There's only one thing you can do, and that is pray.
I was even impressed by Chris Otule today, who showed us a couple little turnarounds and post moves in garbage time. It was good to see him getting some time against the young big men of the Bearcats because that's a battle we're likely to see a lot of in 2010 and beyond.
(Man is it weird to type anything with a '2' and without two zeroes after it for a year. I'm getting old.)
The win today reminded me a little of the Pittsburgh win I was sad to have missed last year, or perhaps the Notre Dame win last year where Marquette similiarly blew the Irish out. I understand those two opponents are far better than what Cincinnati is this year, but this was a no-let-down, we're-taking-care-of-business thrashing that had the Eagles at their unbeatable, top-of-their-game best.
The unfortunate thing is, I know Marquette won't shoot 60 percent from three-point land in every game they play. Something tells me the first 10 minutes of the game are the ones Buzz will key on when the team takes a look at the film tomorrow -- at least if he's smart.
Nonetheless, this was Marquette's way of serving notice to the rest of the Big East. When you come to the Bradley Center this year, you better play your best game if you expect to have a chance.
Keeping all of this in mind, it's important to note that you still have to take care of business at The State University of New Jersey Wednesday night. West Virginia will be a huge game, but you can't look ahead of the Scarlet Knights. Marquette has lost at Rutgers before. I don't think they want to let it happen again.
MU fans -- enjoy this tonight. It's time to get back to work later this week.
An amusing note before we move on: JSOnline still has the AP story for the Marquette game posted on their site, meaning that the only thing put up for the game by the fine folks at Journal Communications was their game blogs. That also means that the front page of JSOnline's Sports section has no fresh local content from anytime after I did my 'Drops' feature last night. Way to go, guys. If you wonder why your company is hemmoraging money and losing readers, it might be because you're not giving us any reason to read.
That said, let's look nationally.
 It's appearing as though my prediction about the road teams in last night's 'Drops' feature is going to come true as the Ravens defeated the Dolphins earlier today while the Vikings are struggling against the Eagles as I type.
The Ravens are one of those teams that you're just not quite sure about yet. They seem to have that defense back to the fine form it was known for in the first half of this decade and they appear to be a dangerous group, particularly now that the powerful offense of the Colts is no longer in their way. My suggestion to the Titans is to run the football and try and grind out a win. The Ravens gave Chad Pennington way too much trouble today and are too good at forcing quarterbacks to put balls into the adept hands of Ed Reed.
The AFC is fascinating to me. I could very well see the Ravens pulling off the upset against the Titans because I see that game being very low scoring and fun to watch. Meanwhile, the Steelers should be a strong favorite against the Chargers, but there are X-factors, like how well Ben Roethlisberger bounces back from that big hit in the last week of the regular season, as well as whether or not LaDainian Tomlinson will be available to the Chargers, or if they even need him with as well as Darren Sproles ran last night.
Meanwhile, I kind of forsee a Giants/Panthers NFC Championship. As well as the Eagles have come on in the last couple weeks, the Giants are just too good in big games and have too much going for them, while the Arizona Cardinals always have been and always will be the Arizona Cardinals in my mind and, as such, should never advance to a game of any real importance like an NFC Championship game, particularly against a team that was atop what was perhaps the toughest division in football this year.
Bill Cowher will continue to be the coach in the studio for CBS Sports next year. He will lead them to a 9-7 record but they will just miss the playoffs. Phil Simms will throw for 30 touchdowns, 10 of which will go to Armen Keteyian.
LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers lost to the Washington Wizards today when James was called for a travel with 2.3 seconds remaining. David Stern's head exploded shortly afterwards, while a quick survey of other NBA referees after the contest revealed that only 41.4 percent of them actually know the traveling rule. James even said "it looks like I'm traveling." Given what passes for traveling and not traveling in the NBA, my guess is that he was traveling, or at least carrying the ball. I'd like to see LeBron try and dribble a ball with laces and under the rules they had for the game back when that was the case.
I repeat: I am an old fogey.
Note as well, though, that the loss was to the Eastern Conference's worst team in the Wizards. This is something to note for those of you thinking the Cavs have a shot at the Celtics.
Sidney Crosby, the NHL's lone marketing piece, started a fight last night to try and get his struggling Pittsburgh Penguins going. It wasn't exactly what you expect from a hockey fight as Crosby seemed to have needed some time to think about when and how he was going to drop the gloves so he had the least chance of getting hurt. Rather than it appearing to be something building between enforcers that just kind of erupted, as is normally the case in hockey, Crosby had a faceoff, where he very calmly approached, tried to win it, then, before the other guy had moved, threw down the gloves and started trying to pull the guy's jersey up. Also for the record, I don't think I've ever seen officials step into a hockey fight faster. Two reasons: One, because Crosby's face has to appear on anything and everything involving the NHL, so they probably don't want it getting messed up. Two, because it really was a pretty weak fight. I almost sense Brett McLean of the Florida Panthers was aware of who he was fighting and just kind of let him do his thing. After all, what would be done to you if you were known as the guy that knocked the NHL's golden boy out?
Lastly, the Oakland Raiders have recieved permission to interview Kevin Gilbride, who ran the run & shoot with the Oilers, was nearly punched by Buddy Ryan when he was coaching in Houston and went 6-16 over the course of two years as the coach of the Chargers. Yup, Al Davis is really turning things around.
Ah ... man, if everyday was a fairly warm Sunday in January where Marquette wins a Big East game by 30-plus. Life is good.
More soon.
Photo: Maurice Acker is lifed off the ground in joy by Lazar Hayward (Morry Gash/AP/Yahoo! Sports)
Photo: Ed Reed (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images/Yahoo! Sports)
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|
Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 27
City: Brookfield
State: Wisconsin
|
|