Lotta Love In the Heart of the City
7-0…Really digest that for a moment.
Jumpin’ Jesuits… WE’RE 7-0!!!
That’s about the reaction from almost every Marquette fan as they wake up today. If you haven’t checked out the newest Big East standings, you cannot help but smile when you look to the top of the sixteen team list.
1. No. 8/8 Marquette 18-2 (7-0)
To put it plainly, this is awesome. But be wary Marquette Basketball fans, because in this conference, being the hunted is something new for this program. The history speaks for itself. The Golden Eagles have had at least two losses through five games in their first three seasons in the conference. Now they sit unblemished on top of an absurdly talented heap of very good teams.
For the last three years, this program’s starts were not going to make opposing teams and fans sweat over the upcoming Marquette game on their schedule. A 7-0 start though… A win on the road against a ranked team… I do not care who you did it against, everyone is looking up at you.
Everyone.
The only problem now is they’ll be gunning for you too.
If Buzz Williams and his players wake up today and notice a strange itch developing on their backs, it might be the big red bulls eye that grew overnight. And with every victory that bulls eye will get bigger. Monday nights thriller against Notre Dame put the rest of the conference on alert. They have the attention of the so called “big boys” now, and they can certainly expect a rough go against them.
This team isn’t sneaking up on anyone again for the rest of the year.
Hey, you all wanted this. Now it’s time to put up or shut up. Saturday will bring will bring another talented Big East team to the Bradley Center that is desperate for a win. Georgetown (like Notre Dame) cannot afford to lose their next game. Expect the kitchen sink and then some on Saturday.
If this group gets to 8-0… 9-0… dare I say even 10-0 in conference play… with only four players scoring the basketball, Buzz Williams should get the Nobel Prize.
Talk about getting the most out of your players. You could write a book on the things that this team lacks. And you could write another about overcoming adversity.
Understand this people… UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE DO YOU DOMINATE IN COLLEGE BASKETBALL PLAYING NO ONE TALLER THAN 6′6″. That doesn’t happen. Normally when coaches go to a lineup like that, it’s out of desperation, not confidence. This team plays cool, calm, and collected when they’re six or seven inches shorter than the tallest guy on the floor!
I’ve always used one main criterion to determine a great team from a good one: Even when you don’t play well, you are still able to find ways to win games. In the past three seasons, if the Golden Eagles didn’t show up at the start of a game, they were dead in the water. Let the Providence game show that this trend is ending. Let Monday’s Notre Dame game show that this team has a killer instinct to match.
You can’t quite put your finger on it, but something is going on with this team. They just know how to make the extra pass. They just know how to come up with HUGE defensive stops. And the just have this innate quality to score more points than the other team.
They’re termites, all twelve of them. Even our big guys are termites (compared to what our expectation of what a “big guy” should look like). But like termites, they swarm you, and they never go away. Just when you think you’ve driven them off, they’re in your face destroying your will to fight back. They demoralize you to the point where you shake your head and ask yourself what the heck happened?
The national media has begun to take notice. The student body is nearly in a frenzy. Alumni are holding their breath. And all the while Buzz Williams keeps his players focused on the next game ahead. Even with some irritated powerhouses looking up at one of the Big East’s newbies, it’s hard for fans to say they’ve never felt more confident.
Yeah, we might be termites, but we play like giants. Who knows, maybe we’re all witness to something special going on this season. You know last time a Marquette team rattled off ten straight wins in the middle of a season, they had a no name head coach, a bunch of players that had never won anything before, and an ability to frustrate teams into madness.
They won a conference title and went to the Final Four.
Get on board everyone, because the bandwagon is about to fill up very quickly.
Brian Henry
Marquette University Radio Sports Director