Marquette "aBuzz" With Excitement

Well, that was fast. Marquette hired Buzz Williams right away. A 5-day "search," which might have encompassed their entire campus, ended up picking Mr. Lightyear. He seemed like a good guy based on his press conference, but this blog is not thrilled with the hiring process. Not Williams's fault, granted, but here goes.

Number one - Okay, so you don't get Tony Bennett, Sean Miller, or Anthony Grant because they aren't interested. No one can blame you on that. That's a good reason to interview other candidates, like Wright State's Brad Brownell, Davidson's Bob McKillop, Southern Illinois's Chris Lowery, or Ohio State assistant John Groce. (As mentioned earlier on Pun City). By all accounts, it doesn't look like Marquette ever made any overtures toward these candidates. Which brings us to....

Number two - In five days, with most coaches in San Antonio for the Final Four and coaches convention, there's no chance they interviewed any of them. Buzz Williams may end up being a phenomenal coach. However, no one is of the opinion that Buzz Williams was a hot coaching name yesterday. There was no reason to move this quickly and "snatch up" Williams before someone else did. Pun City is not condemning the choice of Buzz Williams. Pun City is condemning the choice of Buzz Williams in 5 days without a national search. If they made the search, took another week, and still ended up with Williams, this blog would have been satisfied.

The 5-day "search" screams either "lazy" or "held hostage by 18-year-olds," depending on whether you believe they wanted to keep continuity by hiring an assistant with 9 months on the job; or if you believe they wanted to keep all of their incoming recruits at the expense of a better game coach. (Pun City would say Lowery, Brownell, and McKillop are all better game coaches. If they all turned MU down, be this blog's guest, hire Williams).

This blog has a hard time believing anyone came away from MU's search thinking, "That was really thorough." Oh well, Williams seems cool enough to take over. Problem is, if he's not at the level of some of the coaches MU didn't interview, then he's not likely to last his 6-year contract. Best of luck, Buzz Williams, Marquette didn't do you any favors.

Marquette-ch a rising star?

It's been a busy month, but Pun City has been ridiculously negligent with the posts. Time to stop the bleeding. Hopefully this blog can get up some new stuff on its recent trips to San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Detroit, including a review of Del Taco.

Big news in the area is Marquette Basketball. Here's Pun City's thoughts on their plight:

1. Marquette has a coaching search going on to replace Tom Crean. The order of preference this blog would have had initially was 1. Tony Bennett, 2. Sean Miller, 3. Anthony Grant, 4. Bob MacKillop, 5. Chris Lowery, 6. Brad Brownell, 7. John Groce (Ohio State assistant). Current Marquette assistant Buzz Williams doesn't appear on Pun City's list for a bunch of reasons.

a) Very little head coaching experience. He coached one season at New Orleans, finishing 14-17. This iteam alone would not be enough to merit an interview at a major conference school, much less a hire.

b) The way he left his prior head coaching position. Basically just bailed on them after the season to take an assistant's job at Marquette. Pun City always thinks that leaving a head job for an assistant's job shows poor leadership. Leaving after only one season is even worse. Leaving the kids he recruited in the city of New Orleans is worse still by this blog's estimation.

c) Hiring a head coach only for the sake of continuity is short-sighted. On the surface it seems ridiculous to this blog that an assistant coach that has only been there for one season would provide realistic continuity anyway.

Several recruits seem to have expressed interest in being released from their national letters of intent. For some, it doesn't even look like hiring Williams would keep them in the fold. By hiring Williams you run the risk of mortgaging the future for the present. It's conceivable that Marquette would be willing to take this risk because they have a good opportunity to have a great season next year. If Dominic James, Jerel McNeal, Wesley Matthews, and Trevor Mbakwe return, they would have a very good nucleus. (Unfortunately, this blog realizes that Mbakwe's return is unlikely).

The ideal scenario would be hiring a very good "x's and o's" head coach other than Williams, then retaining Williams as a recruiting assistant. There has been speculation that Williams would not stay on unless hired as the head coach, so Pun City would caution Marquette fans against getting their hopes up. That said, MacKillop, Lowery, and Brownell would be fine choices for the job. The future of the program would be in good hands. With Williams as the head coach, Pun City does not have the same confidence.

Marquette's Ticket Office: Wait Some More!

ESPN's Joe Lunardi has his Bracketology out, and one fun activity Pun City always likes to do is see what apparel this blog has that would be relevant with each of the projected seeds. Here's this week's sample:

1 Seeds:
Memphis - Hat, conference shirt, tiger paw
Tennessee - Nothing
Kansas - NCAA tournament shirt
North Carolina - Shirt, hat, wristbands

2:
Washington State - Shirt, hat, conference shirt
UCLA - 2 Hats, conference shirt
Georgetown - Hat, conference shirt
Duke - Hat, jersey, shooting shirt, wristbands

3:
Indiana - Jersey, conference shirt, warmup pants
Michigan State - Hat, conference shirt
Texas - NCAA tournament shirt
Wisconsin - 20 shirts, 14 hats, jersey, warmup pants, wristbands, shorts, sportcoat, conference shirt, NCAA tournament shirt

4:
Pittsburgh - NCAA tournament shirt, conference shirt
Marquette - 12 shirts, 8 hats, conference shirt
Stanford - Conference shirt
Drake - Conference shirt

5:
Vanderbilt - Nothing
Butler - Conference shirt
Mississippi - Nothing
Dayton - Jersey, hat, conference shirt

6:
Xavier - Hat, conference shirt
St. Mary's - Nothing
Gonzaga - Hat
Baylor - Nothing

7:
Notre Dame - 2 shirts, 1 hat, conference shirt
Kansas State - Nothing
Clemson - Nothing
West Virginia - NCAA tournament shirt

8:
Texas A&M - Nothing
Arizona - Hat, conference shirt
Villanova - Conference shirt
Arizona State - Conference shirt

9:
Oregon - Conference shirt
Purdue - Shirt
Rhode Island - Conference shirt
Massachusetts - Conference shirt

10:
Boston College - NCAA tournament shirt
Providence - Conference shirt
Illinois State - Conference shirt
Mississippi State - Nothing

11:
Ohio State - Shirt, jersey, hat, shorts, conference shirt
Miami - Wristbands
Cleveland State - Conference shirt
South Alabama - Conference shirt

12:
Akron - Nothing (Although, Pun City has tickets for their Bracket Buster game 2/23, so this may change)
San Diego State - Nothing
Connecticut - Conference shirt
Louisville - Hat, conference shirt

13:
Davidson - Nothing
Virginia Commonwealth - Shirt, conference shirt
Oral Roberts - Conference shirt
Siena - Nothing

14:
Stephen F. Austin - Nothing
Cal State Northridge - Hat, conference shirt
Utah State - Conference shirt
UNC Asheville - Nothing

15:
Austin Peay - Hat, conference shirt
Northern Arizona - Nothing
Cornell - Nothing
Hampton - Conference shirt

16:
Lafayette - Nothing
Quinnipiac - Nothing
Jacksonville - Conference shirt
Binghamton - Nothing
Southern - Nothing

So far, 44 of 65 teams covered. Assuming that the above listing is the exact field that ends up happening, there is still a chance Pun City's apparel options would be a better fit come tournament time. As noted above, there's a good chance Pun City would pick up some Akron swag in February. Additionally, Pun City's March road trip will either be to New York for the Big East tournament or out west for the West Coast Conference and Mountain West Conference tournaments.

If this blog heads west, there is a 99% chance it would pick up at least a conference shirt from each tournament. This would bring relevance to the San Diego State entry. Additionally, it would cover for any other bids the MWC or WCC picked up. (St. Mary's would be accounted for from the WCC as well).

Incidentally, Pun City actually has a shirt depicting all Big East teams already, so a New York trip would not help the cause of adding relevance to extra tournament teams. It would still be a sweet trip though.

On the trip note, this blog knows a few of you are out there wondering where Pun City will be going. It's still up in the air unfortunately, but could be resolved as early as tomorrow.

The Marquette ticket office just received the number of tickets they have been allotted from the Big East for the tournament, and tomorrow they hope to determine which applicants receive their tickets. Pun City would put its chances at around 50-50 right now. The unfortunate part of this situation is that this blog has repeatedly had its hopes driven upward only to find out another delay was going on.

The MU ticket office first stated that they would know in November who would be receiving tickets. This changed to December, then January. At the start of January, they said "a couple weeks, maybe 3." It has indeed become 3 weeks, and last week one representative told Pun City that it would be determined by Wednesday, and another said it would be determined on Monday. Well, obviously Monday was wrong. Today's rep said they were "hoping to get that figured out tomorrow," so that doesn't even guarantee a Wednesday answer. This blog is hoping that a response is delivered by Friday at the latest, this is beyond ridiculous as far as having to plan a trip on short notice. Luckily some of the tournament days coincided, but the disparate locales make for no other consolidation of trip resources (rental car, hotel, flight) being possible. It's a tough situation, there's a good chance Pun City won't order Big East tickets for a while now, so hopefully this blog wins this year and is able to check the Big East off of the list.

Pun City In 2008: Feel Free To Call It A Comeback

The U62 Telethon is on the air!

Always wanted to say that. Paraphrasing Stanley Spadowski, Pun City is back on the air. Sorry for the delay. Lots to cover here, so let's get cracking.

From the pun front:

People from Texas can be a bit Austintatious.

From the Tecmo front:

This blog finished up its Tecmo Super Bowl season where Pun City was trying to get every team to wind up 8-8. Some unexpected results there. First off, this blog was indeed successful in getting each team to 8-8. From there, Pun City had noticed/been informed by Ronk Romens that point differential was the second tie-breaker. Once Pun City was in week 17, it tried for some point differential ties as well. There were some successes on this front, including some nail-biters.

The first game of week 17 was Kansas City versus the Los Angeles Raiders. The Chiefs were sitting at +183 on the point differential, and 8-7 in record. The Raiders were 7-8 in record, +85 in point differential. So....doing the math for you, if the Raiders beat the Chiefs by 34, the two teams would tie in both record and point differential. Fortunately Pun City was able to pull off the feat, and after all other games were played, the AFC West Division standings showed the following lines:
1. Rai 8-8
1. KC 8-8
2. SD 8-8
3. Den 8-8
4. Sea 8-8

Similar ties were able to be accomplished in the AFC East, where the Bills and Dolphins tied at 8-8 and +90, and this blog was also able to get the AFC Central champion Pittsburgh Steelers to +90 on differential also.

In the NFC East, the Giants and Eagles tied at +79, and though the NFC West race wasn't close with the 49ers winning by 163 points, the NFC Central was close going into the last game. The Green Bay Packers were taking on the Minnesota Vikings. If Green Bay was able to beat Minnesota by exactly 30, the Vikings would fall into a tie with the Chicago Bears at +121. Leading by 27, the Packers gained possession of the ball on the 50 yard line with 45 seconds remaining, and proceeded to run off 29 ineffectual seconds, advancing only to the 39. Pun City knew that 16 Tecmo seconds was not very much, but figured there was just enough time for one pass play. Don Majkowski found a streaking Ed West down the sideline, who caught the ball with 2 seconds remaining and ran out of bounds at the 11 yard line with 1 second remaining. From there, Chris Jacke hit a 28-yard Field Goal to clinch the Bears-Vikings tie. After checking the game statistics, Pun City let the fireworks ensue.

Tecmo aficionados know that the "division champion" graphics normally show up when a team clinches the division based on record. With all teams having the same record in this season, that wasn't going to happen. Another quirk of Tecmo is that it will wait until a week is completely over before declaring any tie-breaker division champions. Given this knowledge, Pun City knew that all six division champion graphics would be appearing in sequence, and this blog would find out a) If Tecmo could handle a 3rd tie-breaker, and b) Potentially what that was. There was also a good possibility of finding out c) How to put out a fire started by a smoking Nintendo.

As it turned out, the screen flashed across Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers, Los Angeles Raiders, New York Giants, Minnesota Vikings, and San Francisco 49ers as division champions; with the Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Bears, and Detroit Lions as wild cards.

This meant that indeed Tecmo Super Bowl can handle a 3rd tie-breaker, and it turned out to be total points scored. Pun City enjoyed the project, but getting two teams to have the same number of wins, points scored, and points against is a tough nut to crack.

Lastly, from the college basketball front:

This blog was at the Marquette-Savannah State game in Milwaukee's Bradley Center last Saturday. This was fun, but just prior to the game this blog had some business to do. Pun City had been listening to the Wisconsin-Texas game on the radio on the way down, and was very much interested in tracking the result. The Bacardi Club in the concourse was a huge disappointment and was not showing the game on any of their 3 flatscreen TVs. Fortunately, just down the hall, a normal cathode ray TV was displaying the game. A crowd had gathered around the screen, probably about 15. The group swelled to about 20 before the end of the game. What followed was a pleasant surprise for Pun City. As you may be aware, Marquette and Wisconsin are arch-rivals, so Pun City was expecting at least a minority of the watchers to be rooting against the Badgers. This wasn't outwardly noticeable, however. And when Michael Flowers hit the game-winning shot to put Texas away with 2.7 seconds remaining, the entire group let out a genuine, giant cheer. Maybe they were just happy that Marquette's RPI was being raised, maybe they found Wisconsin to be the lesser of two evils, hopefully they were happy for the state of basketball in Wisconsin, but Pun City is happy to report that they cheered. Mad props Marquette fans.

Midnight Madness: Now Served Between 7 and 10

Pun City was visiting New Glarus, WI earlier this week with limited interweb access so as a result there was no post. Sorry for the lack of notice, this blog is sure that in excess of 1 Tuesday night was ruined.

As a result of being gone for so long and not having much prep time, Pun City is going to draw up a short preview of its upcoming weekend, which will be the opening practice for college basketball teams across the country.

On an action-packed Friday night, Pun City plans to drive to Madison for Wisconsin's opening practice. Work ends at 4:30, drive takes roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes. Picking up Pun City's grandma so she can take in the festivities alongside Pun City. Hopefully catching some decent action and a good preview of the season to come. Most likely not getting any autographs since this blog's supply of Wisconsin trading cards has dwindled over the last couple season-ticketless years. In any case, hoping to get a good hour of watching in before taking off.

The goal is to make it back to Milwaukee in time for UW-Milwaukee's opening practice, where players will be introduced at 10:00 PM. Hopefully the drive is only about 1 hour and 30 minutes by that time of night, and also hopefully Pun City is able to meet up with a couple friends that are also hoops fans.

Saturday night, tragically, Pun City's buddy has a bachelor party. This is very poorly timed given that Marquette has their first open practice that day. With the bachelor party starting at 7:30 PM though, Pun City does have an opportunity. Gates open at 6:45 and free shirts are being distributed to all attendees. It's a freakin' sweet shirt, so this blog is going to make a run at it even though this blog is going to have to miss the practice. Then a dead sprint up to Sheboygan to play some laser tag or hit in a batting cage with some friends.

Probably a little more intense than needed, but it's been since April that this blog has had any dose of College Basketball, so it's time to start mainlining it!

The Hardcore, Psycho, Nitro Survey In A Can!

What up. This blog knows that not all (okay, both) of you are on MySpace, which means that you don't get subjected to about 3 extra surveys a week.

This blog will occasionally partake in one of those, but Pun City figured it'd be cooler to create its own survey, instead of taking the surveys "the man" wants Pun City to take.

So here it is, feel free to jump in on the comments with your answers. Bonus points to anyone that can identify what the title's referencing:

Repost this with your answers! This survey peers deep into your soul!

1. If you were a club sandwich, how much guff would you take from two punk mail packages?

Absolutely none. Club sandwiches have proven themselves as postal experts.

2.If you were a shrimp sensation at Applebee’s, would you be sautéed, crisp fried, or fire grilled?

Personally, sautéed. Butter is awesome.

3.Who is your favorite Fantana?

Probably Sophia

4. Are you familiar with the 1-3-5 rule? If so, share a story of it being violated.

Definitely. This blog recalls in high school a math teacher was in the 2, which was probably the worst place to go, since no one else was there. Pun City went to the 5, and shortly thereafter someone else came in, and they were forced to use the 3, really a mess.

5. Whose country is this?

This is ouuuuuurrrrr country!

6. Is your love of lobster about to be indulged in more ways than you can imagine? If so, how many ways is that going to take?

Pun City doesn’t foresee this happening. That would take at least 7 ways though.

7. Can you hear me now?

Yeah, but how about in the bottom of that well?

8. What about the Red Sox?

You paint an interesting question. Obnoxious fans.

9. Which Brewers pitcher needs to be more consistent?

I don’t know, all of them?

10. Which Brewers pitcher needs to be more consistent RIGHT NOW?

Steve Woodard

11. Are you gellin’? If so, how so?

No, especially not feloniously.

12. How often do you force the vastness of your cell phone’s network into conversation?

Never, that type of jag move seems reserved for sadistic Cingular pitchmen.

13. Where’s the beef?

Far from the tofu section at Sentry.

14. What is your favorite third-world country?

Trinidad and Tobago

15. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

Three

16. Did you have a color in mind?

Yes

17. Which banner does Marquette REALLY want to raise to the rafters of the Bradley Center?

Pepsi Blue and Gold Classic.

18. Would you purchase a product that was advertised as “Initially Good”? If so, what type of product?

Yes, something like A & W root beer or RC Cola

19. Which event had more historical implications for you: Chili’s Margarita Madness 2007 or The 2007 Women’s NIT?

This blog's gotta go with Chili’s Margarita Madness 2k7 on this one. The traffic jams were at least half a car deep.

Butler Digs UWM's Graves

Some thoughts from the New Year's weekend.

This blog got a chance to take in the Savannah State-Marquette game Saturday at 1:00 CST, headed to Grand Avenue Mall and Major Goolsby's for the interim, then went to see Butler take on UW-Milwaukee.

1. Marquette played very poorly. Savannah State, now #273 in the country in RPI, came in and gave MU a game, losing 69-51. Walk-on Freshman Craig Kuphall, who didn't even have a name on his jersey earlier in the year, replaced Jerel McNeal in the lineup coming out of halftime. Very surprising and disappointing performance from Marquette fans' perspectives.

2. The Borders in Grand Avenue Mall is scarcely in Grand Avenue Mall at all. You have to navigate about 5 turns, 2 skywalks, decend a big staircase, then end up at street level on a very unusual street (for Grand Ave.). Maybe not entirely worth it unless it's raining, but notable.

3. This blog had the good fortune of having dinner with a couple Butler students, one of which is a cheerleader, up for the game. Both were pretty knowledgeable about college basketball, in particular Butler, so it made for an interesting conversation.

Some topics covered:

-Both of them are Bob Knight fans, but know much bigger Knight fans in their home state. They think he gets a raw deal when everything gets blown up like this year when he was getting a player's attention by popping his chin and ESPN had a 2-day feeding frenzy of coverage. (Pun City agrees)

-The cheerleader had been to every Butler game this year with the exception of the road game at Tulane. Pun City can see how that wouldn't be a prime destination, even if New Orleans was at 100%.

-She said that Madison Square Garden doesn't look very big from floor level. Furthermore, she was surprised the cheerleading squad was allowed to travel to MSG, and apparently it took a groundswell of Booster Club support to get them there.

-Butler apparently has (optimistically) 4,000 undergraduates. This makes them the smallest school in the Horizon League, a title they will continue to hold even after Valparaiso joins the conference next year.

-The pair have become Gonzaga fans this year after Butler played (and beat) them in New York. They are fans especially of Derek Raivio but did not seem to like Adam Morrison.

-The cheerleader had been served by Notre Dame's Luke Zeller when he used to work at the Washington, IN Subway.

-Pun City was at the Southern Illinois-Bradley game when this happened. (Note this blog standing and clapping in the white during the last 2 seconds of the video clip). A surprising perspective from the Butler cheerleader on the incident. (Pun City paraphrasing)-

"You know, I went to cheerleading camp and heard that she had alcohol in her system when she checked into the hospital. I mean, why would you want to move when you're on the top of a 2 1/2? (2 1/2 person-tall formation -PC). I mean, no one cares that you are still doing the motions to the fight song, either, everyone's just pissed because you ruined cheerleading for the rest of us, b****. We can't do anything now. I seriously feel like I'm still in High School. We can't do anything we couldn't do then. Oh wait, we can do tick tocks, big whoop."

Pun City, recoiling: "Uh, what's a tick tock?"

Cheerleader, back to sweet mode: "Oh, that's when you are held up by one foot and then switch to the other. In High School, any time you release from the base (cheerleader holding you up -PC), you have to cradle (as in get caught by the base with both arms near the ground instead of staying up in the air -PC)."

So Pun City thought that was very interesting. Further research revealed the excerpt in the "Consequences..." section here, which delineates the rule changes imposed after Kristi Yamaoka's fall. Pun City doubts there is a way to substantiate the alcohol rumor, so take that for what it's worth.

4. UWM pulled out all the stops that night, on and off the court. It was free foam Panther Paw giveaway night, so all fans got those. This blog was very entertained watching UWM's cheerleaders, who were handing out the paws. The cheerleaders performed routines while wearing the oversized paws, which was hilarious. There was also brief (and completely unserious) discussion of producing a calendar where the paws would be the only articles of clothing involved. A couple poses were tested out, this blog was liking the view.

A second, late-arriving promotion was Road Runner t-shirts. This blog can only assume this is because UWM has a lot of fast players. At halftime, this blog went in the concourse and discovered the shirts, which may have initially been intended for students only, but probably less than 20 students showed, so they were really trying to get rid of them at that point, this blog imagines.

Most importantly, the Panthers played pretty well on the court, stifling Butler's All-America candidate A.J. Graves for much of the contest. The Panthers were in the game for the duration, with Butler holding on 55-50. This combined with UWM's win over Wyoming last week offers a good bit of hope for their fans. In this blog's estimation, the last 2 games UWM has played were the 2 games they played most as a team this season, which is a very positive sign. Let's hope it keeps up.

Marquette, Wisconsin, and UWM Student Section Report Cards

A big Pun City shout-out to the Wisconsin Badgers on their new ranking of #4 in both polls.

On a somewhat-related note, this blog was able to sit in the student sections of 3 of Wisconsin's Division I basketball programs in the last month, so it figured it could now provide a primer and some ratings for these sections. (In the interest of full disclosure, this blog is an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin, so has much more game experience in that section). Here goes:

UW-Milwaukee -

Tough to rate this one with the program rebuilding. This blog has been to a few of the bigger games that UWM has had over the last few years, and sat in the student section for most of those. The students always pack it full for big games. And this blog can say that the section was by far the drunkest basketball student section this blog has ever encountered. Pun City is convinced you would blow a .06 just having breathed in the air all game. This is a double-edged sword, of course. On the one hand, you have uninhibited students willing to scream anything and everything at the players and officials. While this can lead to some humorous moments, the drunk students aren't usually well-informed on college hoops in the first place, so there are some seriously dumb comments that detract from the game.

That's the big-game crowd. As previously mentioned, UWM is rebuilding this year. Which brings us to the next point: UWM's student fans are very much of the fair-weather variety. This year, the 2-11 Panthers have seen multiple games where there are less than 50 students in the section. This blog sat in the student section last week for a game where they were giving away free shirts to students, and less than 20 students showed. That's too bad. Now given the small sample size, this blog does have to give those that show up credit.

Obviously they're showing tremendous team spirit by being there, and they still make it a challenge for opponents when they're on the student end of the court. While not the most hoops-savvy crowd in the state, this blog gives those that show up all the credit in the world. Marquette and Wisconsin haven't had down years in a long while to test their fan bases, so it's tough to say what would happen if those programs were in rebuilding mode. This blog needed to borrow a Student ID to get the free shirt, but as long as you look mildly like a student, the section is easy to get into and closely-situated seats are no problem. This blog surmises that you could probably sneak in there even if you were well above college-age since the US Cellular Arena ushers are pretty cool.

Hoops Knowledge: 4 out of 10
School Spirit: 7 out of 10
Attendance: 3 out of 10
Ease of Entry for Non-Students: 10 of 10

Marquette -

This is the student section this blog has the least experience in of the 3 reviewed. Definitely a section that fills it up for big games. Weird attendance patterns outside of that. First off, being a school where a lot of students don't stick around over winter break, those games are poorly attended (by all fans including students). One might ask: Why would the other fans not attend these games? A fair question. This most likely has to do with the quality of non-conference opponents Marquette schedules for their home games.

To this point in the season, Marquette has the 112th-best strength of schedule in the nation. UWM has the 104th-best, Wisconsin the 64th. MU is typically the worst of these 3 because of their standard scheduling practices. Marquette's basketball program (like UWM's) has to support the bulk of their athletic department's budget. Because of this, MU will only go on the road in exchange for a home game that they are sure will sell out. On other occasions, MU will give a 1-and-1 to some schools when MU has a player from around the opponent's home. The "auto-sellout-type" opponents are few and far between. Recent examples of "1-for-1s" include Wisconsin (every other year) and Arizona (one shot deal). These games sold out. Other examples were Oakland, near former Golden Eagle Chris Grimm's hometown; and Valparaiso, near current players Dominic James' and Jerel McNeal's hometowns.

Anyway, the NCAA has a subset of teams that will play Marquette in Milwaukee without a promised return game. These teams support their athletic programs by getting a huge check from MU. These teams also tend to suck. Which finally brings us back to the student section. Faced with unpalateable opponents, students (and other fans) miss these games in droves. Now granted, these aren't big-name opponents, but this blog still thinks you should show up (especially if you already have the ticket).

They do still fill the lower deck student section with regularity, so it's not the worse attendance you could have there. This blog thinks it can chalk it up to bad luck, but thinks it is worth mentioning that both the guy next to Pun City and the guy behind Pun City spilled their beers during one visit, and in another visit frequent contributor Wells had his jacket spilled upon. MU's Gold Rush as a result gets the award for "most beer-spillingest" section in the state.

This blog would say they are also the most fiercely loyal section in the state, having enormous rivalries with non-conference and conference schools alike, and students rabidly defend their school and team. Sometimes this leads to some insane proclamations, but those can be fun as long as one remembers to keep it all in perspective.

A positive is that MU, like UWM, doesn't have another sport to distract most students, so Midnight Madness is the first major sporting event they have during the school year. Not a lot to do (sports wise) other than catch up on basketball, so the students generally have a good grasp on the college hoops landscape.

The biggest downside from this blog's perspective would be the difficulty in sneaking into the student section, since they have all entrances blocked by fences, and you generally have to show your ticket (which is paper and thusly very different-looking than a normal ticket) to ushers to gain entry. Some games they haven't been very stringent, but typically your best bet is to sit in a section adjacent to the student section, then sneak over when an usher isn't looking, since the ushers within the section generally are there just to indicate when the section is filled.

Hoops Knowledge: 8 out of 10
School Spirit: 8 out of 10
Attendance: 6 out of 10
Ease of Entry for Non-Students: 3 of 10

Wisconsin-

The section Pun City has the most experience with (pretty much in all sports). Perennially sells out, similar to Marquette except Wisconsin fills in all decks for the games where school is in session. Winter break usually finds some empty seats, but mainly just a lot of old people replacing the students.

The Kohl Center does not sell alcohol (except for Suites, where it's included in the cost of the Suite), so there aren't too many issues of drunk students and definitely not any spilled beer. A rare drunk student will have had to have gotten drunk before the game and/or brought in a flask. This blog has seen maybe 2 or 3 drunks in the student section in roughly 100 games over the last 7 years. This isn't half bad because everyone's brains are working at full capacity when they're screaming at the officials or opponents.

This blog would say that sneaking into the student section isn't a problem, since they don't really check tickets too closely. The main issues would be a) Getting into the building in the first place, and b) Finding an unoccupied seat that someone isn't going to boot you from.

Since the entire season has been sold out for all seats since around 2000 (if not before), it's tough to get a ticket. Obviously they're available at a price, but still a pain to mess with. If you're lucky enough to get into the building, and for some reason want to switch seats into the student section, good luck. On the one hand, there's probably a couple seats here and there that you can find. This blog imagines most of them would be on the 2nd or 3rd deck, even though there are a few to be had on the lower level for some Winter Break games or early non-conference games. On the other hand, students are a late-arriving crowd so it's unlikely that you'll be there long before someone kicks you out of their seat. And unlike MU and UWM, it's pretty rigidly-followed assigned seating, so you can't just go anywhere.

A plus is that ushers never check your ticket unless they're called over by someone who's had their seat taken, so you can get into the student section easily although it's tough to find an individual seat once there.

The Wisconsin basketball crowd is a lot different than the football crowd there, so this blog is going to rate them pretty high in hoops knowledge. After all, this blog went there, so there's some knowledge base right there. Although, there's some overlap of football and basketball fans and the football fans are not always the most focused sports fans, to say the least.

Wisconsin hoops fans are pretty rabid as far as school spirit goes. There's a bunch of different chants and songs that most students seem to keep up with. This blog is among those that think some of the songs/hand motions are kinda dumb, so people like Pun City often sit out a couple. There is probably more school spirit exhibited at football games, but there's still a lot at the hoops games. Perhaps not as much as Marquette because UW fans "split" their intensity over the 2 sports (and for some 3 or 4 with Hockey and even Volleyball factored in). UW fans, at least in this blog's estimation, also avoid being as unrealistic/optimistic/delusional as MU fans can sometimes get. This speaks to their hoops knowledge but detracts from school spirit.

Hoops Knowledge: 9 out of 10
School Spirit: 7 out of 10
Attendance: 9 out of 10
Ease of Entry for Non-Students: 5 of 10

Fo Shizzle, The Grizzle

This blog has posted a couple times on UWM's passing compared to their shooting. In that vacuum, one is only able to to compare UWM to its past self. So this blog decided it would get an entire hold on some more passing statistics for your perusal. Here's the data from the Oakland-Marquette game tonight.

Leading off, Oakland:

G Rick Billings 0 shots, 3 passes
F Shane Lawal 0 shots, 2 passes
F Patrick McCloskey 1 shot every 22 passes (1 and 22)
G Jonathon Jones 1 shot every 7.91 passes (11 and 87)
F Derick Nelson 1 shot every 6.80 passes (5 and 35)
F Vova Severovas 1 shot every 4.33 passes (3 and 13)
G Keith MacKenzie 1 shot every 3 passes (1 and 3)
G Brandon Cassise 1 shot every 2.33 passes (9 and 21)
G Erik Kangas 1 shot every 1.67 passes (15 and 25)
C Shawn Hopes 1 shot every 1.17 passes (6 and 7)

And the shooting percentages:

Kangas 40.0%
Cassise 33.3%
Hopes 33.3%
Severovas 33.3%
Jones 27.3%
Nelson 20.0%
MacKenzie 0.0%
McCloskey 0.0%
(Lawal and Billings did not shoot)

This is pretty balanced, MacKenzie missed his only shot and didn't pass much, but he passed more than he shot and there weren't any "ball-hog-esque" statistics that stood out. (What did stand out was Jones's 87 passes, obviously he's the point guard and the offense runs through him)

Let's get Marquette's up here.

Lawrence Blackledge 0 shots, 2 passes
Tommy Brice 0 shots, 2 passes
David Cubillan 1 shot every 7.67 passes (3 and 23)
Dominic James 1 shot every 3.07 passes (14 and 43)
Dan Fitzgerald 1 shot every 3 passes (2 and 6)
Jerel McNeal 1 shot every 2.67 passes (9 and 24)
Wesley Matthews 1 shot every 2.43 passes (7 and 17)
Lazar Hayward 1 shot every 1.5 passes (4 and 6)
Ousmane Barro 1 shot every 0.71 passes (7 and 5)
Dwight Burke 1 shot, 0 passes
Jamil Lott 2 shots, 0 passes

MU Shooting Percentages:

Ousmane Barro 71.4%
Jerel McNeal 66.7%
David Cubillan 66.7%
Dominic James 57.1%
Wesley Matthews 57.1%
Lazar Hayward 50.0%
Dan Fitzgerald 50.0%
Jamil Lott 50.0%
Dwight Burke 0.0%
(Lawrence Blackledge and Tommy Brice did not shoot)

Aside from the ridiculously high shooting percentages, the only thing that really stands out for Pun City is seeing that Barro, Burke, and Lott all shot more than they passed. These are the forwards for MU, and clearly it shows Marquette doesn't like to pass out of the post. Given the shooting percentage MU had from those 3 (combined 60%), it's understandable that they prefer the shot (except for Burke, but he only had 1 shot).

Marquette seems to be the model that most teams are looking for, where guards have the most passes per shot, the frontcourt has a high shooting percentage, and no one really is a "black hole" that shoots poorly.

Incidentally, Marquette won the game 80-62 despite being outpassed 217-128. More passing doesn't guarantee a win, but this blog would say that Oakland was able to stay closer than they would have had they not been sharing the ball effectively.

Bradley Center for Decorum Control

This blog took in the entire Pepsi Blue & Gold Classic on Friday and Saturday, as North Dakota State upset Marquette in the tournament final, essentially making it the Pepsi Green & Gold Classic. This followed up last year's Winthrop upset of MU in the final (Pepsi Maroon & Gold Classic), so the Golden Eagles are having a hard time winning their own tournament as of late.

While seeing Marquette fall to unheralded NDSU was mildly humorous, much more humorous were the following quotes during the consolation game, which featured the Princeton Tigers vs. the Northwestern State Demons.

Game quotes:

NW St.'s Luke Rogers pulls up limping on their possession, walks off the court during their possession and garners an official's timeout. He talks to the trainer briefly and then returns to the game. (he should have been forced to sit with the official timeout, and Princeton's head coach Joe Scott understandably complains). Hearing Scott's complaint, NW St. head coach Mike McConathy shouts over to him, with extreme sarcasm: "Oh, well I apologize. We'll see what you do if one of your guys gets injured."

Later in the game....After Keithan Hancock misses a layup, McConathy believes there was a foul on the play. (It looked fine from Pun City's vantage point, but McConathy was already sending in 5 substitutes, so there might not have been much else to do at this point). McConathy glares at the official the entire length of the floor, until he sets up right next to McConathy. At this point, McConathy screams "THAT WAS YOUR CALL!!" Play continues and McConathy continues to give the official the business. Approximately 8 seconds later, he receives a technical foul. After receiving the T, an again-sarcastic McConathey proclaims, "Well I'm sorry if I wasn't 'Po-lit-icly Correct' in front of 35 PEOPLE!!" Of course, McConathey was wrong, there had to have been at least 90 spectators in the 18,600-seat Bradley Center.

Later in the first half, Marcellas Ross appears to have a cramp and is noticeably limping down the court while playing defense. (At this point Princeton is bringing the ball up the court, methodically as always). McConathy calls over to the official, "I've got an injured player when you get a dead ball. 42's injured when you get a dead ball." Because Princeton is taking so long to advance the ball up court, the official grants the timeout and stops play. Scott, unaware of the injury, repeatedly asks, "Why is there a stoppage of play? Why is there a stop?" The official, unnecessarily incensed at this point, sprints over to Scott, then gets right in his face to say "I'll tell you why there's a dead ball! Because 42 is injured!!" An annoyed Scott holds up both hands and says "I was just asking you a question."

So very amusing from this blog's standpoint, it was nice to be able to get close enough to hear all of the banter.

This blog also saw Marquette's win over the Delaware State Hornets tonight, very little of note there except former MU star and current radio color commentator Jim McIlvaine played drums in the band for the night. This was both cheesy and appropriate because McIlvaine always wears a band shirt to the games when broadcasting.

Supposedly McIlvaine was attempting to become the tallest member of a collegiate pep band. He played a decent amount of songs competently, but abstained from playing any drum-only cadences and missed a few minutes while being interviewed on the radio broadcast. This blog will give him credit though, he didn't just play the bass drum a couple times and act like he was "all that." This blog probably wouldn't have noticed him if it hadn't heard his partner mention the change in duty during the pre-game broadcast.

Can't wait for the Wisconsin-Marquette matchup on Saturday, this should be one of the best games in the history of the rivalry in terms of combined rankings. This blog predicts a Wisconsin victory, 63-62.