Men's Basketball Hits the Road to Take on Nebraska
11/29/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Golden Eagles conclude four-game trip after Great Alaska Shootout Win
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MILWAUKEE ? After just one full day back in Milwaukee, the Marquette men's basketball team gets on a plane and heads on the road again after returning from a Great Alaska Shootout championship. This time, the team won't log as many miles as to Alaska, but a road trip is a road trip. The Golden Eagles face Nebraska on Wednesday, November 30 at 7 p.m. in Lincoln, Neb.
Coming off a week on the road at the Great Alaska Shootout, the Golden Eagles spent all day traveling on Sunday. The team was given the day off, but returned to the gym on Monday and Tuesday before catching an evening flight to Nebraska for Wednesday's game. All the travel causes some concern for head coach Tom Crean, but it's something he said he feels confident his team can grow and learn from.
"It's important that we get our legs back. We have travel weary legs and more importantly travel weary minds," Crean said. "That takes a little time to get back, but I'm confident that they will be better and ready to go on Wednesday."
The team has had a lot thrown at them in a short period of time. Three game plans in four days followed up by yet another game plan for a game in a hostile environment at the Bob Devaney Sports Center in Lincoln. But the team was anxious to get back to practice and get to work after the success in Anchorage. The back-to-back road trips have forced Crean and his staff to instill a back-to-business mentality in the team.
"We have to turn back around and understand that there really isn't a whole lot of time to catch your breath," he said. "We took Sunday off. We worked on us a ton yesterday, and today we spent a lot of time competing today in practice and getting ready to play Nebraska."
In Nebraska, Marquette will be up against a team that is off to a hot start. The Cornhuskers have started off the 2005-06 season undefeated, going 4-0. NU started off the year taking three straight games to claim the John Thompson Family Foundation Classic, defeating Longwood, Yale and Louisiana Tech in the process.
Following that tournament win, Nebraska downed Southeast Missouri State, 69-54. Senior forward Wes Wilkinson scored a career-high 25 points on 10-of-15 shooting to lead the Huskers to their fourth straight win.
Wilkinson averages 14.7 points per game to lead the Huskers in scoring. He?s hitting a solid 56.7 percent shooting on the year, hitting 17-of-30 shots from the floor.
Senior guard Jason Dourisseau is second on the team in scoring and is also hitting at an above 50 percent clip. He scores 12.5 per game and hits at a 55.6 percent pace.
"Guys like Jason Dourisseau and Wes Wilkinson are having very good years," Crean said. "Wilkinson is a 6-10 player and he's a lot like Steve (Novak). He didn't play as much against us last year because he had the stomach flu. They've got Aleks Maric and Joe McCray, their sophomore five man and sophomore two man, playing really well as well."
Nebraska is a solid team from the floor, hitting 42.6 percent and has done its job on defense limiting its foes to 36.3 percent shooting. Nebraska is also scoring 10 points per game more than its opponents and grabbing 40 rebounds per game.
Rebounding was key in Marquette's sweep of the Great Alaska Shootout. Crean emphasized the need to have continued success on the boards in order for the team to keep winning.
"We have to have to have a mentality that we are going to rebound," Crean added. "We are going to shoot for 40 rebounds a game and we have to build on the fact that we out-rebounded three pretty good rebounding teams. We could also turn back into the team that got out-rebounded by 18 by Winthrop. We can't let that happen. We have to have a great mindset about rebounding the ball and creating easy baskets on the offensive end and getting out and running our break, which was really good for us on Saturday night."
Marquette's rebounding success led to a 28-2 fast break advantage during the Shootout. Part of the reason for rebounding domination was the play of sophomore forward Ryan Amoroso, who grabbed a career-high tying 12 rebounds in the Shootout title game, in addition to a career-best 30 point effort against South Carolina.
"To me, he's really improving because he's learning how to use his body better all the time," Crean said. "He's getting in better shape. It's very important that his conditioning continues to be great. He is just finally getting his legs back and his wind back because he's been out for some time with illnesses. I'm really anxious to see how he plays the next few weeks to see how much consistency he can bring."
Amoroso's growth and consistency isn't the only thing on Crean's mind. He hopes the rest of the team can show consistency through the next few games, which include tough road contests such as Nebraska and a December 10 meeting at Wisconsin.
"Especially coming off a tournament like (the Great Alaska Shootout), to go on the road, it really makes you have to focus and concentrate on what you are doing," Crean concluded. "You hate to be on the road for school reasons, but in this case, we've got to go to a very tough opponent ? a Big 12 opponent that's 4-0. They are looking forward to playing us, especially after what we did to them last year. Our guys have to turn right back around and understand the significance of building on what you just did."
If history is any indication, a Great Alaska shootout title will do wonders for a team like Marquette. The 2001 Shootout title was part of a season opening 10-game win streak to start that season and the team finished the year 26-7 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in Crean's career.
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