Marquette vs. Memphis Recap

Man, it’s been a busy week. Thankfully, last night game me just enough time to catch the Marquette game on ESPN, even if the outcome wasn’t what I might have hoped for. Last night was my bowling night, so after bringing my 123 average down even more, I took in the game with my teammates. It was tight, but we managed to wrap up our match fairly quickly, and I first glanced at the action when Marquette was down 20-9. It would have been sooner, but I always make sure to get in a game of pinball after doing some bowling. It has to be done, even if it’s at the expense of 2 minutes of basketball. My game reactions:

1) Seeing Travis Diener play like that last night pissed me off. I’m not pissed off at Diener per se—instead I’m more pissed off at the fact that a national television audience didn’t get to see the Diener that I know. He was still easily the best player on the floor, but he wasn’t on that other level that he’s been on all season long. He committed some bad turnovers, and his jump shots weren’t raining down constantly on Memphis the way that they have against many of the other teams that he’s played against this year. My jaw didn’t drop to the floor like it usually does, and with the whole country seeing him, I had hoped it would so that All-American talk would heat up even more. I guess I’ll just have to wait for more nationally televised games. The law of averages says Diener will eventually blow the country away.

2) Unlike the rest of his team, Ryan Amoroso had another solid game. That’s two big games in a row for the big freshman. I hope he can keep this up, because he’s at the point that I thought he would be at this year. I still really like this guy long term.

3) Only those of you who were at the Marquette-Stevens Point game in the pre-season will appreciate this: Gene Mueller has forever ruined my ability to enjoy myself while watching Dameon Mason. Any time his name gets mentioned, that stupid chant-type thing that Mueller did was running through my mind.

4) What’s up with Marcus Jackson wearing a gold t-shirt under his blue road uniform? I’m not a big worrier about uniform problems, but this one was pretty glaring. Doesn’t the NCAA have some sort of rule about keeping your t-shirt the same as the dominant color in your uniform? If it doesn’t, it should. Jackson looked dumb last night with his non-matching shirt.

5) Well, unfortunately, the Marquette team that I saw in the first few games of the year showed up last night. A poorly designed offense, lack of timely shots, and turnovers galore all added up to an awful showing. On the bright side, this is the first time that I’ve seen this Marquette team in quite some time, so there’s a good chance that we’ll see them continue to play like they have in their handful of other semi-big games this year.

6) Njoya Simplice takes the award for top basketball cheap shot that I’ve witnessed this year after his sternum elbow to Travis Diener. Then again, I didn’t see that guy from Texas and his cheap shot against Memphis last week, which sounded much more blatant. Since Memphis sort of passed the cheap shot on last night, though, I wonder if this is some sort of cheap shot train? What are the odds that Travis Diener passes it along by giving a cheap shot to his cousin Drake in the Depaul game next week?

7) Brad Nessler and Rick Majerus got talking about Travis Diener’s parents at one point, and their furious travel schedule as they drove around the country heading to games that Travis and his sisters, also division one basketball players, were participating in. I don’t think I could imagine a more fulfilling life.

8) I like to end on a positive, so I’ll say this—Marquette never quit. It would have been easy, because the game seemed over real early on, but the kept charging right until the end. Maybe this team is tougher than I thought.