If you’ve been living under a rock recently and have failed to notice, the (No. 23/24) Marquette Golden Eagles will be down on old Rocky Top tonight when they take on (No. 16/19) Tennessee in Nashville. The game is a part of the Big East/SEC Invitational, and MU and UT is the marquee game of the night.

This will be a very dangerous game for the Golden Eagles as they will struggle to match-up with the much bigger Volunteer team. No one knows this better than Golden Eagle skipper Buzz Williams who talked about it earlier this week.

“They have 10 high-major players,” Williams said. “But they’re really long and really athletic, and they just keep bringing ‘em at you.” Eight of UT’s ten man rotation stands at 6’6” or taller, and their study Tyler Smith will do the majorit of the damage. Smith’s 17.4 points, 5.9 boards, and 4.6 assists per game make him a real tripple threat that will challenge the Golden Eagles.
To handle the fast pace and multiple bodies being thrown at them, Marquette will need production from its bench that has been entirely innefective this year. Only 5’6” point guard Maurice Acker is averaging more than four points per game.
Expect the load to fall on the Dominic, Wes, Jerel, and Lazar as usual. The only differece that will be needed tonight, is that all four must be spectacular. This means staying out of foul trouble, knocking down tough shots, and rebounding as if they were all four inches taller.
This is not an unwinable game for MU, but they sure are not the favorites. Expect Marquette to battle Tennessee, but in the end the Vols will have too much firepower.

Prediction: Tennessee 84 Marquette 65

Brian Henry
MUTV Remote Coordinating Producer
Marquette University Radio (WMUR) Sports Director

Bond Shymansky has been tabbed the new head coach of the Marquette women’s volleyball team. Marquette University AD Steve Cottingham announced that Shymansky, who has a plethora of postseason experience and recruiting success at the NCAA Division I level, will be taking over the program.

After former coach Patti Rolf resigned with just a couple weeks left in the 2008 season, Shymansky will surely be welcomed. He was the head coach at Georgia Tech University the last seven seasons. Under Bond, the Yellow Jackets made three NCAA Tournament appearances. Georgia Tech’s overall record of 172-64 (.729) included a 96-38 mark in the Atlantic Coast Conference. He finished the 2008 campaign with the highest career winning percentage among active ACC coaches, a mark that also put him in the top-20 in the nation.

In seven seasons, Shymansky led Georgia Tech to the NCAA Sweet 16 (2003), the NCAA Elite 8 (2004), ACC Tournament Championship (2002) and ACC Regular Season Championship (2003 and 2004).

At only 37 years of age, Bond Shymansky will certainly breathe alot of life into a program filled with young stars such as Beccka Gonyo, Amy Deelo, Tia Russell, And Ciara Jones.

Brad Galli
MUTV Assistant Sports Director

Marquette Head Coach Buzz Williams expressed his final thoughts after the win over Wisconsin.

Marquette Radio (WMUR)’s Brian Henry provided the clip, and added, “Take a listen. You come away just liking the guy.”

http://www.zshare.net/audio/525001816e786adf/

The BIG EAST Conference announced Monday that Marquette guard Jerel McNeal is the Player of the week for December 1-7.

The senior led the Golden Eagles to a pair of victories over Central Michigan and #22 Wisconsin. In the two games, McNeal was a combined 15 of 28 from the field, and averaged 20 points (14, 26) per contest. In a surprising statistic, Jerel was second in the team in rebounding for the week, pulling down 4 boards against CMU and 7 against UW, for a total of 11. That was second only to teammate Lazar Hayward’s 21 total boards.

This is the second time McNeal has been honored as BIG EAST Player of the Week. The other time came during the 2006 season, after he guided the Golden Eagles to a CBE Classic championsip with wins over Texas Tech and Duke.

Brad Galli
MUTV Assistant Sports Director

A long-standing rivalry or a case of David and Goliath?

Early in the Marquette-Wisconsin game, it looked as though the Badgers (6-2) were coming in as a Goliath, leading the game for most of the first half. The team’s largest lead over the Golden Eagles (7-1) hit ten points with just under seven minutes left in the half. The Badgers finished out the first twenty minutes with 33 points to Marquette’s 27, led by Keaton Nankivil and Trevon Hughes. The team did not just end the half with the lead in points, they also racked up upwards of 10 team fouls in the first half alone.

The tide of the game turned when Marquette came back strong in the second half. The team stepped up their rebounding efforts, moving from only 10 total rebounds in the first half to 31 total by game’s end. Led by senior guard Jerel McNeal, whose season-high 26 points were almost half of MU’s total points, the Golden Eagles were able to secure a victory over the Badgers, 61-58. Other high scorers for the Golden Eagles were senior guards Dominic James with 10 points and Wesley Matthews with 9, as well as junior forward Lazar Hayward, who also chipped in 9.

When asked what contributed to the Badger’s loss, head coach Bo Ryan simply said, “We didn’t take [advantage of] the opportunities on our end.” The win is Marquette’s 53rd victory over the innerstate rivals, and marks the first back-to-back victories for Marquette in the series since the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons.

Patty Marra
MUTV News Director

OFFICIAL MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY PRESS RELEASE:
———————————————————————————-The No. 25 Marquette University men’s basketball team continues its homestand with non-conference action against in-state rival No. 22 Wisconsin Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. CT in the Bradley Center. ESPNU will feature Marquette’s first national broadcast of the campaign, with Lou Canellis (play-by-play) and Mike Kelley (analyst) calling the action. Melissa Knowles will serve as the sideline reporter. Saturday’s matchup will be the 115th between the two programs.

Offensive Pace Continues To Lead BIG EAST
Seven games into the 2008-09 campaign, Marquette continues to lead the conference with a scoring average of 87.9 points per game.
That mark, which includes a pair of 100-point efforts in back-to-back games (vs. Chicago State, vs. Milwaukee), currently ranks eighth in the nation through games of Dec. 3. MU’s roster feature four players averaging double figures in points.
Marquette and North Dakota State (4th, 90.5 ppg.) were the only two programs in the nation to feature a trio of 1,000-point scorers when the season began.

Burke’s Career Game Helped MU To Win In Last UW Matchup
Senior forward Dwight Burke helped lead MU to an 81-76 victory at Wisconsin last season in the most recent matchup between the two programs.
The Brooklyn, N.Y., native finished with 12 points and nine rebounds in 17 minutes of action, including some clutch free throws in the game’s closing moments. Burke’s point and rebound totals from that game both marked career highs to that point.
UW’s last trip (Dec. 9, 2006) to the Bradley Center resulted in a 70-66 victory for the Badgers.
Wisconsin leads the all-time series record, 62-52, but the Golden Eagles have a 36-26advantage in Milwaukee.
One of the longest tenured series in Marquette’s record book, the MU-UW series dates back to the 1917-18 season.

Matthews Nearing Dad’s Collegiate Scoring Mark
Senior Wesley Matthews has played a key role in the team’s early success in 2008-09 and is currently producing the best offensive numbers of his career.
He currently owns 1,186 career points and will soon pass the total collected by his father, Wesley Sr., at the University of Wisconsin. The elder Matthews netted 1,251 career points for the Badgers, which ranks 14th on the school’s all-time list.
Selected in the first round of the 1980 NBA Draft, the senior Matthews was able to tally his scoring mark in just three years.
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Marquette bounced back from their first loss Tuesday night, as they returned home from the Chicago Invitational. Wesley Matthews again led the Golden Eagles with 18 points and led No. 25 Marquette (6-1) to an 81-67 win over the Central Michigan Chippewas (2-4).

MU started off slowly, shooting just 37% (10-27) from the field in the first half. The Chips kept things close throughout, as Marquette’s injury-plagued lineup continued to force players to play positions usually unfamiliar to them. Wes Matthews matched up against CMU’s power forwards and Lazar Hayward platooned at Center, playing alongside four Marquette guards. Heading into halftime, the Golden Eagles led 36-27.

In what has been a recurring theme in the seven-game Buzz Williams regime, the Blue and Gold-donned men jumped out to a fast start in the second half. They stretched their lead to 18 after a 13-4 run. Coach Williams’s bench outscored Central’s, 17-6, a positive sign after its struggle against the Dayton Flyers last Friday night.

Foul trouble continues to plague Marquette, as Lazar Hayward fouled out, while Dwight Burke and Wes Matthews both had four fouls. But most of those fouls came late in the second half, when the game was already out of Central Michigan’s reach. To Coach Williams’s credit, the team’s tenacity was controlled and incredibly effective. Nine steals led to 18 points, and the defensive effort is slowly starting to gain its own identity.

Dominic James poured in 15 points and Lazar Hayward scored 14 for Marquette, who faces off at home against the University of Wisconsin, Saturday at 8:30 P.M.

Brad Galli
MUTV Assistant Sports Director