No Surprises Here

Now the college basketball season is officially over and the brackets are out, and, surprise, surprise, Marquette's name is not in there. They did, however, make it into the NIT. But, as I've stated earlier, this will be the last time they will be in any kind of tournament ever again.

As I've also stated before, MU heads to the Big East next year, joining (and taking with them) a lot of really fucking good basketball teams. (The Big East has six teams in the tourney this year, plus Louisville and Cincinnati, who will be members next year.) And I don't see us ever being able to compete at that level. "Well, doesn't basketball go in cycles, where a team is good one year and not the next year?" Well, yes, it does, but here's the thing: Most of the teams in the Big East (and I'll include Louisville and Cincy in this) are known as good basketball schools. They're able to recruit a lot of the best high school talent, because incoming players know these are good programs that are going to do well. Marquette, historically, has been a decent team, but they've always played in a weak conference. Of course you can get players on your team if they think they have a chance to go to the tourney every year. But, in the Big East, prospective players looking at Marquette are going to look at their schedule and say, "Nigga, you crazy you think I wanna play them teams! Shit, I'll just play for one of them teams." Hence, the talent that Marquette could have possibly recruited dries up real fast. Even state talent might head somewhere else in the state, because they have a better chance to compete.

Speaking of which, why didn't Marquette join the Horizon League, which contains mostly Midwestern teams, and even some state teams (UWM and UWGB)? It even contains another one of our bitter Catholic rivals (Loyola). But then, why would we want to join a league in which we could regularly kick the shit out of state schools' bitch asses? I can't help notice that UWM is in the tourney. Why would we want that? We'll just join the State of Pennsylvania League instead. (Pennsylvania is actually right next to Wisconsin, in case you might be confused on your geography.) In fact, now that I've got to talking about it, I really like our chances in the Big East. I can't wait for Western Michigan to kick our asses out of the NIT, so we can get down to some real competition. Next year: Final Four, Baby!!