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2008 Marquette Basketball Predictions & Season Preview

Written October 14, 2008 by Jack Jones

Tom Creen may have left the Marquette basketball program to become the head coach at Indiana, but he left his replacement Buzz Williams with a lot of talent. This Golden Eagle team has notched 10 or more victories in each of their three seasons in the Big East and will look to continue that streak in 2008-09. Six of the team’s seven leading scorers are back and six guys return who played in every game a year ago. This team will be in the upper half of the conference with a shot at contending with the big boys. The NCAA basketball odds makers at BetUS seem to agree, making Marquette a 4.5-to-1 favorite to win the regular season conference title.

Lazar Hayward leads this frontcourt, but he doesn’t have a whole lot of help around him. Even though he’s only 6′6″ a lot of the time he is forced to play power forward due to the lack of depth. Hayward is a great player though who was third on the team with 12.8 points per game, first with 6.5 rebounds, and first with a 45% accuracy rate from behind the arc. There were some high expectations for Trevor Mbakwe when he came to Marquette last year, but he was limited to only 11 games after knee surgery in November. Williams is hoping he regains his jumping ability so he can contribute a lot this season. Senior Dwight Burke will start down low, but needs to get better at rebounding and on defense. At the wing spot there is Joe Fulce and Chris Otule.

Jerel McNeal was the leader of this team towards the end of the season and we expect big things out of him for his senior campaign. He averaged 14.9 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 3.5 assists per game in 2007-08, but dominated in March. Dominic James was hurt for most of last season and that is why you saw a dip in his numbers. He should be back to full strength this year, which is bad news for opponents. Wesley Matthews is a threat on offense with his 11.3 points per game, but defensively he is tenacious and can guard almost anyone on the floor. Someone is going to have to step up for this team and show that they can hit the open shot, otherwise the Golden Eagles could run into trouble when teams sag off of them. Maurice Aker is a possibility to be that guy, but sharp shooter David Cubillian is coming off two shoulder surgeries.

Final Analysis

Marquette will have one of the most talented squads in a loaded Big East conference, but they will have to adapt to a new face on the sidelines. That shouldn’t be much of a problem since Williams was an assistant under Crean, so there is familiarity. We see another NCAA tournament berth for the Eagles this year, but getting to the Sweet 16 might be a stretch. If you disagree BetUS has Marquette listed at a 60-to-1 favorite to win the national title.

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