(03-19-2021 01:38 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 01:26 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  Never thought I would have as much excitement in March this year as I am right now. Wishing Wojo, his family and staff nothing but the best in the future. Absolute class act and terrific ambassador for the school and program these past seven years. Will be rooting for him at whatever his next stop is.

Many rumors already about who the next MUBB coach is. Sounds like things are moving quickly. We shall see.

Why was he let go? He had a great season just two years ago. This year was only second losing season (And if this was a normal season, MU would have had 5-6 more OOC games they would have won).

This article wonderfully sums up where MUBB is right now, and the glaring deficiencies under the now former staff.

https://painttouches.com/2021/03/18/the-...inst-wojo/

The program consistently underperformed based on preseason projections on a yearly basis. The winning percentage continued to trend downwards as seasons went on (from November to March). The program was getting embarrassed, not just blown out, in the limited postseason opportunities it did have (South Carolina and Murray State in NCAAT). The team got embarrassed in the first round of the BET to Georgetown last week. The player development of four-year players was not meeting the demands that the Big East has continued to have; MUBB was falling well short in this regard.

In the past three years, the team had long losing streaks that closed out the season. All of that, coupled with the Hausers debacle, and there was more than enough evidence to show that Wojo simply was not meeting expectations to building a sustainably competitive top-half Big East program.

Going to his first season, Wojo's teams always underperformed defensively, despite being a defensive-first head coach. We had many shooters that he recruited - the Hausers, Howard, Rowsey - but they were all very limiited defensively. Not an efficient way to build a sustainably winning program. Furthermore, Wojo and his two losing seasons at MU are the most by any one coach going back the late-1980's; Marquette should not miss the tournament five out of seven years, given its history, its resources, its funding and commitment to men's basketball. Is it Sweet 16 or bust? Absolutely not. But the expectation is to make the tournament most years, with an occasional deep run every several years.

To go from Tom Crean, to Buzz Williams, to Steve Wojciechowski, MUBB clearly took a step backwards. Wojo is a very nice guy, recruits good kids and was a terrific ambassador for the school. However, the program was regressing and next year didn't look very promising to begin with either. Wojo has a head start now to get another gig or go back to Duke. I was fearing had he stayed (and the team had another losing season) it would severely hurt his chances at getting another high-major gig (which I hope he does). I do think he has learned a lot being a head coach, but I would argue Coach K disciples are not very well trained to be a head coach for their first jobs - but that is another topic for another day.