Marquette Basketball

After reaping in an impressive 2013 recruiting class that features three ESPN Top 100 players, Buzz Williams has landed his first commitment in the 2014 group.

The Golden Eagles received a verbal commitment from 6'7'' power forward Malek Harris from Carl Sandburg High School in Orland Park, Illinois, according to a report from NBC Sports.

Harris announced his commitment on Twitter saying "Officially committed to Marquette to be a Golden Eagle!!!!"

Harris is a perfect fit for Marquette's system because of his bruising and brutal style of play. He also fits the physical mold Williams has used at the position previously, the most recent example being Jae Crowder, who was named Big East Player of the Year two seasons ago.

The Golden Eagles typically play with a power forward who can space the floor, drive the lane and hit shots from the outside. Harris is also a surprisingly strong rebounder because of his athleticism.

By the time Harris gets onto campus, Marquette will have lost Davante Gardner, Chris Otule and Jamil Wilson, all of whom will be seniors this upcoming season. This leaves only Steve Taylor Jr., Juan Anderson and Jameel McKay as the remaining forwards on Marquette's roster for the 2014 season.

Harris could log solid minutes as a freshman as Taylor is more of an outside player and doesn't rebound well while McKay, a junior college transfer, plays more of an inside game by utilizing his physicality and rebounding ability.

Anderson is extremely undersized and hasn't lived up to the hype of his recruitment. He was granted his release from the team in the spring before deciding to return to Marquette.

Harris has the size and skill Williams covets at the power forward position and could develop into an excellent weapon after a couple of years of polishing.

Marquette's tumultuous offseason continued early Tuesday morning when Vander Blue, the team's leading scorer from last season, declared that he will forgo his senior season and enter the NBA draft.

In just one week, Buzz Williams has lost four players from his 2012-13 team that took Marquette to the Elite 8 for the first time since 2004. Point guard Junior Cadougan and forward Trent Lockett also graduated, making for a total of six departures.

Jake Thomas got the ball rolling a week ago by announcing his decision to transfer. Shortly after, freshman guard Jamal Ferguson declared his intent to transfer, as well.

Yesterday, Marquette announced via Twitter that it was granting starting forward Juan Anderson a release. Anderson averaged only 13 minutes and 2.7 points per game this season. He plans on going to a school in his native California to be closer to his family.

The biggest departure is certainly the most recent one. Blue was arguably Marquette's best player and was its best option on offense. Blue averaged 14.8 points during the regular season and got hot during the NCAA tournament, averaging 18.3 points during the team's Elite 8 run.

Blue can drive the lane and is pretty good around the net, but his shooting ability isn't NBA-caliber. He is only a 30 percent three-point shooter and a 45 percent shooter overall. ESPN's Chad Ford ranks Blue 19th at his position and 76th among all draft entrants.

Many believed that Blue needed another year to develop and could have used his senior season to improve his draft stock. Blue thought otherwise, and once he signs with an agent, there is no turning back.

Blue's absence will leave a big dent in Marquette's offense, but the team still has plenty of depth returning. Center Chris Otule is coming back for a sixth season. Big man Davante Gardner is also returning, and the two could become one of the best frontcourt duos in the country.

Forward Jamil Wilson is a tall, athletic shooter who could emerge as a top scorer after another offseason of development. Guard Todd Mayo has been touted as Marquette's most talented player and should improve after a full offseason without any academic problems. Derrick Wilson is the only other backcourt player returning, and he needs to improve his offensive skill set to go with his defensive prowess.

Forward Steve Taylor, Jr. could be the biggest wild card on Marquette's returning roster. Taylor averaged only 8.6 minutes per game as a freshman, but if he can improve defensively, he could be a big producer coming off of the bench. If he does improve, Marquette could have one of the strongest front courts in the country.

Williams has brought in the 11th-best recruiting class in the nation, including two players in ESPN's top 50 and three ranked in the top 55.

Marquette is used to losing its best players to the draft. Just last season, it lost leading scorers Darius Johnson-Odom and Jae Crowder to the Association. The Golden Eagles did just fine, if not better than in the previous season, winning 26 games and a share of the Big East regular-season title, and advancing to the Elite 8 of the Big Dance.

When Marquette takes the floor against Big East rival Syracuse on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET, the Golden Eagles will be chasing their first Final Four appearance since 2003.

And my what a difference one decade makes.

Back then, Marquette was a college basketball outsider, one of the unlucky programs relegated to mid-major status during the nascent BCS era. Now the Golden Eagles are a major-conference powerhouse collecting 20-win seasons by the handful, the kind of team that can unselfconsciously call mighty Syracuse its rival.

Marquette's journey over those 10 years—both in how the mid-major label came to be and how teams like the Golden Eagles managed to shed it—reflects the greater changes afoot in college basketball.

And that journey starts, as these stories so often do, with one great player—in this case, one we've come to know well over the intervening years: Dwyane Wade.

The Mid-Major Dilemma

The term "mid-major" first surfaced in 1977, but it did not enter popular use until Gonzaga's rise from obscurity in 1999.

Gonzaga's classification as "mid-major" was itself an implicit acknowledgement of emerging divisions in the amateur sporting landscape, divisions that had been reinforced by the early '90s emergence of six so-called "BCS conferences."

In essence, the BCS took a conference structure that had once been comparably fluid—with scores of independent schools floating through the ether—and re-imagined it as a simple dichotomy: the haves and the have nots. The majors and the mid-majors. The power conferences and everyone else.

When Dwyane Wade arrived at Marquette in the fall of 2000, the Golden Eagles, then members of Conference USA, belonged in the "everyone else" camp.

Wade's success in resurrecting the program would become part of the mid-major narrative, a narrative that continues to evolve as we grapple with college basketball's shifting contours.

Today, we're increasingly unsure of what that label means and to whom it applies.

Gonzaga was a mid-major in 1999 when it crashed the Elite Eight. Today? Who knows.

Our uncertainty is rooted in the eye-opening success of certain programs and, to some small but meaningful extent, what Wade and Marquette did one decade ago in the 2003 NCAA tournament.

Coming to Marquette

Wade was lightly recruited out of Chicago's Harold L. Richards High School. Not because the 6'5" guard couldn't play, but because his board scores hovered below the minimum qualifying standard.

While other schools demurred, Marquette's Tom Crean, then in his first year as a college head coach, maintained a dogged pursuit.

Desperate to revive a moribund program and sensing Wade's transformative potential, Crean contacted Wade as soon as the summer recruiting period opened.

Wade later recalled Crean's words to him in his autobiography, A Father First: How My Life Became Bigger Than Basketball (h/t Bob Wolfley, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel):

I wanted to be your first call...And I want to be your first call because this is how important you are to Marquette and our future.

When Crean arrived for the 1999-2000 season, Marquette was in the grisly final stages of a protracted decline.

Beginning in the late 1960s under legendary coach Al McGuire, the Golden Eagles (then known as the Warriors) posted 13 consecutive 20-win seasons. McGuire won the school's first and only NCAA championship in 1977 and retired immediately thereafter.

In the 22 seasons between McGuire's departure and Crean's arrival, Marquette posted almost as many losing seasons (four) as NCAA tournament victories (six), and it never once advanced past the Sweet 16.

The Golden Eagles' descent mirrored larger trends in NCAA athletics. As college football's earning power spurred the formation of larger, gridiron-centric power conferences, non-football-playing schools like Marquette lagged behind.

Not surprisingly, college basketball's power structure began to look more and more like college football's.

The chart below divides every Final Four team from 1950 to 1999 into one of three camps: "Division I football schools," "Division I-AA football schools" and schools either without a football program or with a Division III classification. The categorization corresponds to however the school's football program was classified at the time of the Final Four appearance.

As you'll see, a Final Four basketball team in the 1990s was much more likely to have a corresponding Division I football program than a Final Four basketball team in the 1950s.

Decade	Division I-A Football Schools	Division I-AA Football Schools*	Division III or No Football Program
1950s	29	0	11
1960s	37	0	3
1970s	32	0	8
1980s	34	0	6
1990s	36	4	0

*The NCAA did not form Division I-AA until 1978.

It should be noted that all six of the non-football-playing Final Four teams during the 1980s—as well as three of the four Division I-AA Final Four teams from the 1990s—came out of the Big East.

In other words, every single team that made the Final Four from 1980 to 1999 either represented a football-playing school or a major television conference (usually both). 

The Golden Eagles, of course, were neither.

For Dwyane Wade—born in 1982—that meant no school matching Marquette's basic athletic profile had qualified for a Final Four during his lifetime.

As much as Crean had taken a chance on Wade, Wade, too, was taking a chance on Marquette.

The gamble would pay dividends for both men.

Glory Restored: The 2002-03 Season

Lingering academic issues kept Wade from playing his freshman season, but he thrived during his sophomore campaign, scoring 17.8 points per game and leading the Golden Eagles to their first season of 25 wins or more since 1977.

Though the season ended ingloriously with a first-round loss to 12th-seeded Tulsa, Marquette had at least regained national relevance. And with Wade returning for his junior season, expectations were about to reach a two-decade high.

The Golden Eagles entered the 2002-03 season ranked 18th in the AP poll. It was the school's first preseason Top 20 ranking since 1982, and Tom Crean's team quickly proved itself worthy of the hype.

Wade scored a game-high 17 points in an opening-day win over Randy Foye, Allan Ray and the Villanova Wildcats at Madison Square Garden. Midway through the second half, Wade converted an alley-oop dunk that the AP called "the game's most spectacular play."

Marquette would go on to spend the entire season ranked in the AP Top 25. Beginning in late January, the Golden Eagles reeled off a 10-game winning streak that spanned more than a month. By season's end, Tom Crean's team led Conference USA with a 14-2 league record and sat ninth in the AP poll.

Marquette had to settle for a No. 3 seed after dropping its first game in the conference tournament. It needed a stellar performance from future Indiana Pacer Travis Diener just to escape its opening-round NCAA matchup with Holy Cross.

The Golden Eagles survived similarly close calls against Missouri and Pittsburgh to set up an Elite Eight showdown with No. 1 seed Kentucky.

The Wildcats had gone 16-0 in SEC play that year and were making their seventh Regional Final appearance in the last 12 seasons. Star senior Keith Bogans, a product of Maryland prep powerhouse DeMatha, was in his fourth year as a starter.

It was as clear a contrast as you'll find in a late-stage NCAA tournament game: the blueblood vs. the upstart.

And when Wade skied for a thunderous second-half dunk to put the Golden Eagles ahead 63-47, the game had its enduring symbolic capstone. Marquette had beaten mighty Kentucky. The unheralded recruit from Chicago had beaten the ballyhooed (albeit injured) baller from D.C.

Most important of all, a "mid-major" had beaten the ultimate high-major team.

 The final score read Marquette 83, Kentucky 69. Wade finished with a triple-double: 29 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists.

The media coverage that trailed Marquette to that year's Final Four focused largely on the school's Cinderella qualities. Indeed, the powers that be in college basketball had grown so powerful, that a one-time national champion could be reasonably understood as obscure.

In an article entitled "Marquette Takes the Long Road," Joe Lapointe of The New York Times wrote:

[Marquette], founded in 1881, is considered the underdog of the Final Four field, which includes Texas and Syracuse in the other semifinal. The Golden Eagles (known as the Warriors in McGuire's era) have little recent tournament experience and a young coach, Tom Crean, who is in only his fourth season at Marquette.

Among the Final Four, Marquette is the only Catholic university, the only one without a football team and the only one not named after a place. The Rev. Robert A. Wild., the president of the university, said: "People sometimes wonder, 'Are you in Marquette, Mich.?' No. We're in Milwaukee."

That Marquette was soundly beaten by Kansas in the national semifinal game mattered less than the fact that Tom Crean's team had made it to New Orleans.

Just as the collective sense of disbelief that followed the Golden Eagles' success was a sign of the times, so too was their triumph a harbinger of coming changes.

As Times columnist William C. Rhoden put it after the Kentucky game, "Teams like Marquette are called 'midmajors,' but Wade...proved...that the distinction matters less and less."

The New Big East and Beyond

Marquette's breakout 2003 campaign restored the program's luster and served as a springboard for its move to the Big East in 2005.

The Golden Eagles joined Louisville, Cincinnati, DePaul and South Florida as the league's newest members, a quintet that signified the resurgence of basketball outside the Power Six.

Of the five, only South Florida could be considered a football-first school. The other four were coveted primarily for their basketball prowess, in stark contrast to the 1991 Big East expansion that saw Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Temple, Rutgers and Miami join the league.

Back then, the conference's chief concern was establishing football dominance. Now the focus had shifted to basketball, a sign that the power conferences were taking note of mid-majors like Marquette and their burgeoning success.

In the end, though, the Big Six could only co-opt so much.

Soon George Mason, Butler and VCU were making Final Four runs of their own, while other outsiders like Gonzaga, San Diego State, St. Joseph's and BYU were winding their way into the AP Top 10.

Comparing the 10 years that preceded Wade's 2003 Final Four run and the 10 years the followed is a revealing exercise. College basketball doesn't necessarily have greater balance or more parity now—as ESPN's Jay Bilas recently pointed out—but the types of schools that compete at the game's highest levels have undoubtedly changed.

Marquette and Wade were at the vanguard of that journey. In certain ways, they helped move it forward. Even more than that, though, they help mark the distance we've traveled.

When the Golden Eagles play for a spot in the Final Four on Saturday, there will be no tributes to their resurrection or allusions to the structural obstacles they've overcome.

In fact, they'll be the favorites. And no one will think anything of it.

The Marquette Golden Eagles got just what they wanted in the Elite Eight: Syracuse.

Why?

Well for starters, the Golden Eagles defeated coach Jim Boeheim and the Orange 74-71 during the regular season. And it wasn't a fluke win either.

Coach Buzz Williams' squad presents the quick ball movement and slick handling to drive inside and score efficiently. Marquette has only turned the rock over an average of 11.7 times in its last three games, which is below the season average.

In the regular-season matchup, Marquette drew a lot more fouls and locked down on the defensive end. The Orange shot a mere 33.3 percent from downtown, despite shooting better there and inside the arc than the Golden Eagles.

Additionally, Junior Cadougan recorded four steals, which equaled Syracuse's total alone.

Expect Marquette to approach with a similar style, which will be emphatically different than that of the Indiana Hoosiers. Matt Norlander of CBS Sports puts the Golden Eagles into perspective:

From a style standpoint, Marquette is absolutely nothing like the Indiana team that looked completely altered from its regular MO on Thursday night. Marquette will go ugly. It will jilt you. It will not be totally stymied by the zone. And it has the variety to keep it mucky against SU, if need be.

There's no time to wait against a zone that also courts impressive size. Plus, the mobility of the Orange will quickly trap and close lanes at a consistent rate.

Unsurprisingly, Indiana turned it over 18 times and scored a season-low 50 points. 

A strong combination of patience and efficiency must come together, because Syracuse won't allow many open looks. The ferocity of Marquette, though, will cause issues for the Orange in transition, and its offensive potential has been proven. The Golden Eagles even swept Pittsburgh in the regular season.

Passing to cutters when in stride just inside the arc will get the zone moving and draw fouls.

It's not so much about patience as it is motion. The more Marquette maintains constant action, the more a variety of attacks from a dribble-drive and kick or screens to slip inside the paint will open.

Defensively, the Golden Eagles are quite sound as they allow an average of 62.8 points and will challenge shots. Reverting back to the regular-season contest, Syracuse attempted a mere seven free throws to Marquette's 35.

Barricading just inside the arc and forcing the Orange to take more from long range is to the Golden Eagles' advantage. Syracuse's size will dominate the interior if given the chance, so doubling down-low will minimize the number of the high-percentage shot opportunities.

Given that Syracuse was only eight of 24 beyond the arc in February's game, playing the percentages is a smart plan for Marquette to reach the Final Four.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. - For all the homecoming and warm fuzzy memories that University of Miami coach Jim Larranga has of the Verizon Center, it was Buzz Williams and Marquette that made it a night to remember.  With a suffocating defense and interior dominance, the Golden Eagles sent the Hurricanes back to South Beach with a 71-61 loss from the NCAA east regional semifinals.

Marquette, who earned a share of the Big East regular season title, used the relentless defensive pressure that is a staple of their conference, to disrupt the rhythm of the ACC regular season and tournament champions.  While many argued that Miami should have been a No. 1 seed, it was clear from the outset who was the better team on this night. 

The Eagles conference pedigree and the tenacity of their defense rendered Miami’s offense ineffective from the start. Marquette held Miami to 22-of-63 shooting for the game.  They opened a 12-4 lead during the first 7:35 of the opening half and built a 29-16 lead at the break and the game was basically over.

Marquette harassed the ‘Canes by trapping guard Shane Larkin and forcing him to give up the ball.  When Larkin set teammates up for open looks the defense was able to recover just enough to disrupt them.  The Eagles also pounded Miami on the defensive glass out-rebounding  them 26-16. That limited Miami to few multi-shot possessions which magnified the loss of their starting center Reggie Johnson.

“Basically the game plan was to get the ball out of Shane Larkin and Durand Scott’s hands and make the other guards try to beat us,” said Marquette guard Junior Cadougan. “We had the mindset to defend. The game plan for them, just do it and execute. The guys are mature enough to do that”.

Miami’s ride this season hit a pothole in the Nation’s Capital after tough week.  The Canes lost Johnson to a knee injury which forced surgery and he didn’t make the trip.  Durand Scott took a shot to the face in practice and was held to 10 points making just three of his 13 field goal attempts.  Larkin, who had been their maestro all year couldn’t find any rhythm, after contracting a stomach flu which kept him up until 3 a.m. Thursday morning. He finished with a pedestrian stat line of 14 points, four rebounds, and four assists.

“We just weren’t 100 as a whole team,” Larkin said.  “But we’re not going to make any excuses with those ailments. They had a great game plan and executed. It would have been different if we had been making shots”.

However, the real sign of things to come was the trip from the hotel in downtown D.C., normally a 10 minute ride, took them 45 minutes. Combine that with a ferocious defensive performance by Marquette and it was the perfect storm that sent them back to south Florida.