First of all, if you're going to be honorary Marquette fans, it's not "Golden Eagles". Yeah, it might be on some of the paraphernalia, but the fanbase has never embraced it. We're still
Warriors.
The Current Team
I figure not everyone will care about our past, so I'll start with the present. Who the coach is, who the players are, and why they are worth cheering for.
Junior Cadougan: I saw someone on here refer to him as a hard guy to cheer for. While Junior can be frustrating at times, he gets more blame than he deserves because of the position he plays. But he overcame a lot to get here.
His 4-year old brother was the victim of a shooting in 2005 and he had to overcome weight issues to earn his D1 scholarship. As a freshman, he was injured before his season started, but he
worked hard to overcome his Achilles injury so he could contribute to a thin bench as a freshman. When he's on his game, he runs the team well, despite not being a scorer. We are 16-0 this season when Junior gets 6 assists or more. As Junior goes, so goes our team, hopefully he has 4 more good games left in him.
Jae Crowder: The son of a former NBA player,
Jae also overcame weight issues and was more interested in football as a youngster. But when he started playing basketball, it was clear he belonged. Jae initially went to South Georgia Tech when he didn't get any offers out of high school, only to learn from Bob Huggins that SGT wasn't an accredited college. So Jae transferred to Howard Junior College and took a 2-year course load in one year. Along the way, he also earned NJCAA Player of the Year honors and led Howard to their first ever national championship.
When Howard's coach reached out to Buzz to encourage him to come see Crowder, Buzz flew down and watched Jae saddled with foul trouble and play an awful 9-minute performance. The coach apologized, but Buzz said there was no need, that Jae had been a great teammate despite foul trouble, and that he was the kind of kid Buzz wanted at Marquette. The rest is history. Jae finished his classes, came to Milwaukee, and has developed into one of the best seniors in the country.
Darius Johnson-Odom: DJO was another NJC All-American, but didn't have the interest he hoped for out of high school.
He had a lot of interest, but Buzz was the only coach that realized he'd be eligible as a sophomore and offered him after his freshman year. Since arriving, DJO has been a consistent double-digit scorer and an electric athlete that we all love watching.
Vander Blue: He originally committed to Wisconsin, which along with Notre Dame and DePaul is one of our biggest rivals. But after someone on the Wisconsin staff allegedly questioned his academics,
Blue decommitted and decided to head east to Milwaukee. While he hasn't quite lived up to the five-star billing he got from some recruiting services, he has been a phenomenal on-ball defender and is an excellent rebounding guard. The scoring has started to come, and despite a few off-court issues, Blue is winning the Warrior faithful over.
Jamil Wilson: Another guy who initially committed elsewhere, Wilson was a top-50 in-state player that went to Oregon, but
decided to come back home to Marquette after Ernie Kent was fired. A natural small forward, Wilson has spent most of the year splitting time between the 4 and 5 positions due to injuries to our only two centers. As we've gotten smaller and quicker, Wilson has been the spearhead of our "Marquette 3.0" style of play that has us up and down the court constantly, relying on Wilson's 7'1" wingspan and Crowder's defensive tenacity to hold our own in the low post.
Todd Mayo: He's not just OJ's little brother any more. Todd's commitment was surprisingly quiet, and his dreams of attending West Virginia (he has a WVU tattoo on his arm) fell through as he went to prep school and Bob Huggins stopped recruiting him. As he started putting up points at Notre Dame Prep, the offers started to come back, but Mayo remembered that Buzz had been there recruiting him all along. Even when Huggins got back in with a late offer from WVU, Mayo stuck by Williams and came to Marquette. He had a torrid start, putting up plenty of points in November and December, then seemed to hit a freshman wall as Big East play started. Lately, his play has picked up. He's always been a great defender, and now that his 3-stroke is returning, he will be a key contributor to this team off the bench in the tournament.
Buzz Williams: What more is there to say that hasn't been said? He was an unknown assistant who spent one year under Crean before getting the HC job, amidst outcry from many who expected a more established name. Buzz was a student assistant that took out $1,200 of student loan money to buy a suit and plane ticket to the 1994 Final Four in hopes of getting an assistant job. When he learned that UT-Arlington had a post open, he called the coach and expressed his interest. And when he didn't think he was taken seriously, he drove to Arlington, found the coach's house, and camped out in the front until the coach got home and told him how much he wanted the job. From there, Buzz went from school to school as an assistant until he got the HC job at New Orleans. It didn't work well there and after one year he agreed to come work for Crean as an assistant. Since taking over, he's won over Marquette fans that see a lot of Al McGuire in the quirky, rebellious, outspoken coach. Whether it's
his frank interviews, his various
life-lesson quotes, or the dance that
offended all of West Virginia, he's our type of coach. And he just seems trustworthy when he says "Momma says 'Don't mess with happy, and I'm happy'." We love having him.
History 1964-1977
For most Marquette fans, our history starts with Al McGuire, who came to Marquette in 1964. Al was a rebellious figure, one that didn't even want the Marquette job until he heard they weren't going to hire him. Upset that they brought him in as a dummy candidate, he went in, knocked the socks off the interviewers, got the job, and proceeded to turn Marquette into one of the best programs in the country, culminating with the national title in 1977. For a better summation of what those days were like than I could ever give, this article is worth a read:
Charles Pierce on Grantland
History 1978-1999
Most of the 1980s and 1990s weren't very good for the MU faithful. A few worthwhile notes. Doc Rivers was Marquette's best player in the early 1980s. Rick Majerus and Kevin O'Neill got their coaching starts here. Bob Dukiet and Mike Deane were so bad that at one point we considered dropping down to Division II. And maybe the worst thing to ever happen at Marquette, in 1994 we changed our nickname from Warriors to Golden Eagles. But that's on paper. We're still Warriors. Warriors Forever.
History 1999-2008
The Tom Crean era. Crean brought us back to prominence, largely thanks to a partial qualifier named Dwyane Wade leading us to a Final Four. The win over Kentucky in 2003 put us back on the map, and probably got us into the Big East. We again became a regular in the NCAAs, though Crean was rumored to be leaving every offseason. When we finally started to feel secure that Crean was here for the long haul, he appeared on a ESPN press conference announcing that he was the new coach at Indiana. He didn't even tell our Athletic Director he was leaving. Suffice to say, he's not remembered fondly.
History 2008-Current
The Buzz Williams era, also known as "the last four years". Buzz has taken us to the tourney every year, overcome the loss of the Amigos, rebuilt the program on the backs of JUCOs like Jimmy Butler, DJO, and Jae Crowder, and has us in our second consecutive Sweet 16 for the first time since Al was on the sidelines. Things are good and we feel confident our coach isn't leaving.
Tour of Campus
If you're hungry, eat at Real Chili. Best chili in the city. If you're thirsty, there are a ton of bars on 16th Street. If you want to sight-see, either stay on campus or go East toward Lake Michigan. You cannot go West. There is no West. It may look like a massive ghetto starts around 21st Street, but just ignore that. It isn't there. Milwaukee ends at 20th Street. Do not go West.
Miscellaneous
Our fight song is "
Ring Out Ahoya". We are one of 7 teams that play home games in a NBA Arena, interestingly once Memphis arrives, 6 of those 7 teams will be in the Big East. Our all-time leading scorer is Jerel McNeal. Marquette has retired 11 numbers -- 3 (Dwyane Wade), 44 (Don Kojis), 31 (Doc Rivers/Bo Ellis), 24 (George Thompson), 15 (Butch Lee), 14 (Dean Meminger), 43 (Earl Tatum), 20 (Maurice Lucas), 77 (In honor of McGuire), 38 (trainer Bob Weingart), 11 (Apollo 11 crew). And we are Forever Warriors.
