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cujaysfan, you are NOT a Billikens fan!


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Marque will not be replaced; we will not have a anyone on this year's team who can penetrate at will like Marque.

That being said, last year's team did not have an athletic shooting guard who hit from the outside and create his own shot. This year we will have two: Bryant and Clarke. Last year's team also lacked a good small forward. We should have that this season in Izik, who has completed his transition to American basketball, built his upper body strength, and hopefully settled into the small forward role. We also have greater front court depth this season with JJ and Ian.

No, Marque will not be replaced, but we will have significant upgrades in other places. This is Brad's team, not Romar.s and not Spoon's.

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david, great post. another thing brad pointed out last nite, while there is no one on the team to blow by opponents and create space for scoring opps like marque, in the same sense, marque never was the best shooter outside of 12-15 feet. i get the sense that bryant not only can fill it up he can make the space to get the shot off. i have visions of claggett running through my head.

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Regardless of the fact we have not seen bryant play in a billiken uniform we know he will be carrying a large portion of the scoring load in the backcourt. That is why he came here to play, Brad has said he will be the top guy in the backcourt, we have no reason to believe that Bryant won't be one of the top 2 scorers on the team.

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Martquette just didn't lose Wade, they lost their big man as well. replacing their top two scorers and their top rebounder and defender is a huge task for Marquette.

While Perry was the central focus of the team, we return more key players than Marquette does, and Perry load will be easier to handle with all the returnees and Bryant coming in. I don't think we can evaluate Bryant from his stay at Nova, his coach did not like him, Bryant did not like the team, and he hardly played because of it. His points per minute average at Nova speaks for itself though, and he excelled against top competition.

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sure it did, but it seemed like he was saying SLU wouldn't miss Marque that much. Jump shooting and scoring is one thing, but all of the things Marque did as a player, plus the intangibles (leadership, hustle, etc) are damn hard to replace and I don't think there are many players out there who can replace that.

It just seems that the attitude is that losing Marque isn't that big of a deal. I've seen Bryant in practice and he's good, but he is no Marque.

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>Martquette just didn't lose Wade, they lost their big man as

>well. replacing their top two scorers and their top

>rebounder and defender is a huge task for Marquette.

Actually Jackson was not very good defensively - Townsend was/is their best defender and Sanders the best post defender. Didn't you see AJ tear Jackson apart? That was embarassing. Biggest negative with Jackson was his lack of a vertical leap. I think he only had 1 dunk last year. Besides, Kenny Brown was probably the best post defender in CUSA and SLU's best rebounder. How does SLU replace that?

>While Perry was the central focus of the team, we return

>more key players than Marquette does, and Perry load will be

>easier to handle with all the returnees and Bryant coming

>in.

MU brings back Diener, Merritt, Townsend, Novak, new Jackson (much better defensively), Chapman and Bradley (who were key in the Pitt win), and Grimm (who averaged a double/double in Europe this summer), plus 1 top 30 recruit (Mason) and 2 top 100 recruits (Bell and Christian).

Both teams are replacing special players in Perry and Wade and solid post playes in Jackson and Brown. Both have plenty coming back as well. Both will be just fine and at similar levels as last season.

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Nobody else has talked about the most important intangible that we're replacing - the tendency for guys to stand around and watch to see if Marque could pull out one more for us. I think the scoring threat is a lot more spread out on this year's team - an intangible that works in our favor.

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>Nobody else has talked about the most important intangible

>that we're replacing - the tendency for guys to stand around

>and watch to see if Marque could pull out one more for us.

>I think the scoring threat is a lot more spread out on this

>year's team - an intangible that works in our favor.

I don't think that's true. I've pointed that out, though with somewhat different terminology, a number of times.

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I never thought we'd make it with him! A sweet 16 berth for MU would be a great accomplishment for this season, that is the best I could ask for at this point. But first, I want to see them defend the conference title, which I think goes through Louisville this year (even though Gaines finished up his 9 years of eligibility). If Myles is healthy they are definitely the team to beat.

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It's already over. What are you talking about?

My intent was to establish cujaysfan's true feeling about the Billikens, and I accomplished that; it was not my intent for this thread to be more debate about whether SLU or Creighton is better or whether the MVC is where SLU should be or not. Others turned it into that.

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