Through three victories, including a 100-80 victory over Wisconsin-Milwaukee Saturday, a number of trends in the Marquette men's basketball team's play have become apparent.

Most of those trends are positive: Lazar Hayward looking like a nightly double-double; Wesley Matthews' early break-out campaign; and an expected offensive output of around 100 points.

But a closer look reveals a trend that is one of the foremost things on the mind of coach Buzz Williams after every game—foul trouble. In its three games the Golden Eagles have had nine players finish with at least four fouls.

No one has escaped the fouling bug, but the team's biggest hack of this young season has been starting forward, Dwight Burke. Burke has now played just 41 total minutes but has been whistled for 11 personal fouls.

"That's not a very good return on your investment," Williams said. "Dwight (Burke) has got to play with his hands behind his ears instead of his hands in front of his head, because that's where you get fouls."

Marquette's fouling woes have had a number of different effects. The most obvious has been the increased play of sophomore Patrick Hazel. Hazel has gone from barely stepping on the court last season to playing more minutes than Burke in all three games this season.

While Marquette's competition has been the typical weaker early-season opponents, and Hazel has by no means been a superstar, his play has been, at the very least, adequate.

"I think Pat (Hazel) has been good," Williams said. "Pat has helped our team in the last three games.

"The thing is that Pat has got to get better, Dwight has got to get better, because we can't be foolish enough to think that those guys are going to play and just foul out in short durations of time."

But given the Golden Eagles' style of play, all they might need from the pair are minutes.

"There's a couple ways to play the game," UW-Milwaukee coach Rob Jeter said. "They play it where (their guards) get right into you.

"If they can do a good job of keeping guys in front and keep that type of pressure on, they're going to be fine."

The other beneficiaries (at least statistically) of Burke's limited minutes are Hayward and Matthews. With Williams only willing to give so many minutes to Hazel, the coach has been forced to play Hayward at the five spot and slide Matthews down to the four on occasion. Hayward and Matthews have continuously filled the box score as a result. The small lineup, however, tends to hurt the team defensively – something that will only become more apparent once the conference season starts.

"We go through lulls in the game where we're not as good as we need to be defensively," senior Jerel McNeal said. "That's something we've got to change in a hurry as the competition continues to get better and better."

Texas Southern, the next team on Marquette's schedule, might not be that tough competition McNeal is referring to, but better to work the kinks out now than in the February or March. And in order for Marquette to continue improving defensively – opponents are averaging 77 points per game – the team is going to have to cut down on the fouls.

"It's not just Dwight it's all of us," Williams said. "We talk about it, it's on the board, it's on the scouting report. Our guys know what's going on; we have to defend without fouling."