Three times, the question was posed to Marquette senior guards Jerel McNeal, Dominic James and Wesley Matthews. The first two times, the answer came back almost exactly the same.

How long did it take to get over Marquette's 82-81 overtime loss to Stanford in the NCAA Tournament last season?

"It's never out of your mind, you just kind of push it to the back," Matthews said. "If you're a competitor you are always driven by something."

McNeal, who scored 30 points in the loss to the Cardinal, was even more direct.

"It doesn't go away, if that's what you're asking," he said. "I think about it every day, just about being a shot away or a stop away from making it to the Sweet 16."

Postseason disappointment — Marquette has won just one NCAA Tournament game, and three Big East Tournament games in the past three years — has become as much a part of the legacy of Marquette's "Big Three" as regular-season excellence.

McNeal, Matthews and James have come a long way from being highly-touted freshman with unlimited potential heading into the 2005-'06 season. They've been the leaders of a Marquette program that has won 20, 24 and 25 games in the past three seasons.

But it's that postseason record (the trio's sole NCAA Tournament win came last season against Kentucky) that they are committed to changing.

"We've had three successful years here, three winning seasons, three NCAA Tournament appearances," James said. "I don't think I've proven anything at all yet. I feel like to leave the legacy I want we're going to have to go deep into the tournament."

For a Marquette team ranked No. 17 in the ESPN/USA Today preseason poll, that goal starts with the play of McNeal, Matthews and James. The three are the unquestioned leaders of one of the deepest and most talented backcourts in the Big East.

McNeal emerged as the Golden Eagles' primary scoring threat last season, averaging 14.9 points per game. The 6-foot-3 guard is also one of Marquette's toughest defensive players, pulling down 4.9 rebounds per game and grabbing 76 steals last season.

He briefly flirted with the NBA after the offseason departure of men's basketball coach Tom Crean, but withdrew his name before the draft.

The offense often runs through the hands of James, whose speed and athleticism is the driving force behind Marquette's fast-paced, primarily transition-based attack.

Matthews, the least flashy of the three, possesses size (he stands 6-foot-5 and weighs in at 215 pounds) that allows him to rebound out of position and makes match-ups difficult.

But new coach Buzz Williams understands the dangers of a team that relies so heavily on guard play.

"We're going to have to speed the game up. I don't think we can shorten the game, we have to lengthen the game," Williams said. "But you have to be careful with that because when you lengthen the game, you can't take bad shots.

"Our weakness is going to be rebounding the ball. If you've got players on the floor taking shots that the other four players on the court aren't expecting, then you have no chance of rebounding the ball."

To overcome that lack of size, Williams said he will need all the guards to rebound and defend out of position at times. Matthews said the first step toward accomplishing that is accountability — something that isn't difficult for a group of players that James called "brothers."

"We know we have to get more out of each other, we have to draw more out of each other, we have to play off of one another more," Matthews said of himself, McNeal and James. "There can't be times when one person is doing everything and the other two are watching. We have to be involved in almost every play."

James was the final member of the "Big Three" to answer the Stanford question on Marquette's media day.

Just how long did it take for the loss to Stanford to fade from his memory?

"I started getting rid of it right away, and I'm not rid of it completely," he said. It comes back "when I'm in the gym, working out. It's just giving me that extra edge."