"I agree that the blue ribbon No. 12 ranking is "pushing the envelope." But
that is no reason to post a blog that says MU is not a national title
contender. Their point guard is a preseason All American in some
publications- and that is also a common denominator on most Final Four
teams.,”I've posted a short excerpt from a response I received on November 4, 2006.
"I agree that the blue ribbon No. 12 ranking is "pushing the envelope." But
that is no reason to post a blog that says MU is not a national title
contender. Their point guard is a preseason All American in some
publications- and that is also a common denominator on most Final Four
teams."
"That being said, I don't think any team (including Duke, NC, Pitt,
Georgetown) is talking national title, yet. These teams are talking about
winning their first games, winning their conferences.. and at most, getting
an invite to the dance. They'll start talking about getting a good seed
come January/February. No team talks title until the dance begins- its'
the press who does that!"
-John McGowan
Marquette University, class of 1998
_____________________________________________
McGowan is absolutely correct in saying that only the media talks about national championships this early. That doesn't change the fact that Marquette does not have the tools to go all the way this year, though.
In the blog McGowan takes issue with, I wrote the following:
"As the following list indicates, national title winners always have at least one inside scorer and terrific rebounder."
2006: Florida, Joakim Noah (14.2 points per game, 7.1 rebounds per game)
2005: North Carolina, Sean May (17.5 PPG, 10.7 RPG)
2004: Connecticut, Emeka Okafor (17.6 PPG, 11.5 RPG)
2003: Syracuse, Carmelo Anthony (22.2 PPG, 10.0 RPG)
2002: Maryland, Chris Wilcox (12.0 PPG, 7.1 RPG)
2001: Duke, Shane Battier (19.9 PPG, 7.3 RPG) and Carlos Boozer (13.3 PPG, 6.5 RPG)
"The list goes on."
And so it does go on.
2000: Michigan State, Morris Peterson (16.8 PPG, 6.0 RPG)
1999: Connecticut, Kevin Freeman (12.2 PPG, 7.3 RPG)
1998: Kentucky, Nazr Mohammed (12.0 PPG, 7.2 RPG)
1997: Arizona, A.J. Bramlett (8.1 PPG, 6.9 RPG)
1996: Kentucky, Antoine Walker (15.2 PPG, 8.4 RPG)
1995: California-Los Angeles, Ed O'Bannon (20.4 PPG, 8.3 RPG)
1994: Arkansas, Corliss Williamson (20.4 PPG, 7.7 RPG)
1993: North Carolina, Eric Montross (13.6 PPG, 8.1 RPG)
1992: Duke, Christian Laettner (21.5 PPG, 7.9 RPG)
1991: Duke, Christian Laettner (19.8 PPG, 8.7 RPG)
1990: Nevada-Las Vegas, Larry Johnson (20.6 PPG, 11.4 RPG
All statistics found at databasebasketball.com
“