Oh the smiles.
It was Marquette’s men’s basketball media day, and veteran after Golden Eagles veteran was asked about a mindboggling concept. One by one, they considered the notion, wrestled with the nearly unfathomable idea, and their lips curved upward.
Inevitably, the result was a smile, as if they’d just remembered some clever inside joke. Finally, some words wriggled away from those boggled minds, past the spreading grins and out into the open air.
From Jimmy Butler: “I don’t think that’s happening anytime soon.”
And Joe Fulce: “I couldn’t see it just as much as you couldn’t.”
What about you, Dwight Buycks? “Naaahhh.”
And Darius Johnson-Odom? Well, he just breathed a sigh longer than his name.
What could prompt such coordinated disbelief among players whose Marquette careers have been founded on belief? What was the unifying factor? Simple.
Buzz Williams said he’s going to be more patient.
It’s true, folks. Marquette’s coach made the vow in front of everybody. Asked how he’d have to change his coaching approach with so many new pieces in his player puzzle, Williams met the challenge with characteristic honesty.
“I think my mentality is the same,” he said. “I think my personality will probably have to adjust and be a little bit more patient…”
Which is like asking Sam Kinison to be a little less loud.
This is a man whose coaching calling card has always included tracking his exact number of days on the job, whose punctuality has been regimented to the minute because they were all so precious to him. He’s a man so perpetually hoarse from directing Marquette’s basketball ballet that he might have a future as the next Johnny Most (albeit a kinder, gentler version of the late Celtics broadcaster).
He is, quite simply, a man who’s always wanted things done right the first time, if not before then. That’s going to change?
Apparently. Williams seemed quite sincere in proclaiming his patience ploy. He knows it will take awhile to get all of his new parts on the same page, and if more patience is the price, then he’s willing to pay it.
It was just, well, a bit hard to believe.
“I love Buzz to death,” Johnson-Odom finally said after that mile-long sigh, “but that patience stuff might go out the window the first game.”
And yet, the more his players thought about it, the more they started recalling examples of new Buzz. Patient Buzz.
Fulce noted how Williams was quicker to stop and clarify things, more willing to break down concepts into smaller and smaller pieces, and even repeat such explanations if necessary.
Buycks recalled moments when, after seeing new players mess something up, Williams merely shook it off and moved on. “Me and Jimmy, DJO, we’re like ‘Oh man, if that was us, we’d be running right now,’ ” Buycks chuckled. “But we can’t really get mad, we only can just get glad, because we know we’re gonna need their help.”
Indeed, without the steadying influences like Lazar Hayward and Maurice Acker, Marquette will need contributions from throughout the roster more than ever before. Veterans and newcomers alike will sink or swim together.
And not just the high-profile newcomers like Vander Blue and Jae Crowder. Just check out Marquette’s game against Bucknell, when an unexpected boost from freshman Davante Gardner carried the day.
Does Gardner have such an immediate impact without the new, more patient Buzz coaching him up? We’ll never know for sure.
Nor will we know how long the new Buzz can contain the old buzz. “I don’t know how long Buzz is gonna be patient,” Johnson-Odom mused.
So enjoy it while it lasts.
Nutshells
–Lost in the glare of Marquette’s basketball spotlight was what the school’s women’s soccer team accomplished over the weekend. And no, you don’t have to be a soccer fan to appreciate the effort.
Thanks to Sunday’s penalty-kick shootout against Wisconsin, the Golden Eagles reached NCAA Tournament’s third round for just the second time in program history. Only 16 teams can still win the national title this year, and Marquette is one of them.
Beating the Badgers capped quite the soccer weekend at Marquette’s Valley Field. UW-Milwaukee had an invite to the party, too, but lost its first-round game, 2-1, to Wisconsin. Marquette, meanwhile, survived a 1-0 squeaker in its Friday-night first-rounder against Central Michigan, but that win came with a dose of poignancy.
Before talking with the media, Golden Eagles coach Markus Roeders gave an extended bearhug to Marquette senior Lauren Acree, taking care to not disturb her delicate balancing act. Acree, you see, was on crutches. Earlier that night, she suffered an apparently serious knee injury, one all but certain to end her career at Marquette.
“It’s hard,” Roeders said of Acree’s plight. “The nice thing, in the huddle at the end, she’s smiling because she’s excited that our team won an NCAA game.”
Marquette gave her another reason to smile Sunday. Perhaps there are still more to come.
–Packers fans once thought that Brett Favre in a Vikings uniform would be their worst nightmare. Not anymore. Michael Vick as a Viking would be far, far worse.
Moral judgments aside, I was never a big fan of Vick’s QB ability. Sure, he was an electric athlete, but that didn’t make him great quarterback. He was too inconsistent, too inaccurate, too immature to be a genuinely great signal caller.
His QB rating in six seasons at Atlanta was a very pedestrian 75.7. For comparison’s sake, that would rank him 28th among all quarterbacks in 2010, just ahead of Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck.
But that’s all changed. His time with the Eagles – perhaps with an assist from his time in prison – looks to have truly transformed him. Now, he’s not just an athlete, but a complete quarterback. His rating this season? A robust 115.1, tops in the NFL among QBs with more than two starts. And that doesn’t even take into account his otherworldly scrambling ability.
Favre has already said he’s not coming back next year (take it with a million grains of salt, but there it is). Vick, meanwhile, is slated to be a free agent. Packers fans should pray that he never wears purple.
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