I attended the Marquette Madness event on Friday and, while it's impossible to learn much at those things, it is always fun to see the players on the court for the first time, especially the ones that are new to the program. A few comments:

 1. By far the most positive part of the evening was seeing Joe Fulce perform with no sign of a limp and no real hesitation. I'm not a big fan of slam dunk competitions but it was great to see Fulce participate and turn in some good dunks. The entertainment highlight of the night was Maurice Acker tossing a pass from the promenade level and having Fulce take it on one hop and jam it through. There is a video of all of Fulce's dunks posted on You Tube, but you can't see where that pass came from. Fulce also seemed to be playing with confidence in the scrimmage. So, for the second year in a row I am hoping that Fulce can be a significant contributor to this year's team.

2. I liked Buycks athleticism; he had a nice dunk on his first attempt and also seemed to be playing with confidence.

3. Nobody really stood out in the scrimmage, which isn't unusual for something like that. But, Jimmy Butler looked a lot more confident (and a little more muscular) than he did at this time last year. Williams looked OK after struggling as the first participant in the dunk competition. He does have a pretty smooth looking shot. Maymon did some good work around the hoop and drew a few fouls. He also knocked down a 10 foot baseline jump shot, which is something MU hasn't had much of from its forwards the last few years.

4. Otule looked a little slimmer than I remember him from last year, and he looked decent, although some of that may have been because he was matched up with Mbao. Mbao is as skinny as I expected (Manute Bol comes to mind) and couldn't be much rawer. He had trouble completing even fairly simple dunks. I have some hope that Otule can contribute something this year, but really expect nothing from Mbao.

5. It will be nice having Acker and Cubillan around, especially with the lack of depth in the backcourt. I think Acker can be an asset playing 15-20 minutes a game; hopefully he won't be forced to go more like he was at the end of last season.

6. As expected, Johnson-Odom was unable to participate.

So, now I'll be looking forward to the exhibition game and the first nonconference games to see how the team shapes up and what the rotations are going to be. Hopefully we can also look forward to some good news relating to one or two of the high profile recruits who visited this weekend.

Thanks wisblue.

I assume that for MU to have any shot, the JC guys (Butler, Fulce, DJO, Buycks) will have to play large roles.

I hope Butler plays like he did down thw stretch last season.  He really looked like he could compete at a high level in the BE for stretches.

Of course, Ike, you can't believe anything I say after how badly I misinterpreted that football play.

wisblue:

Of course, Ike, you can't believe anything I say after how badly I misinterpreted that football play.

I'm honestly at a loss on that one.  It's just ludicrous.  From what brewhawk says, he runs a successful business and seems to have lived a good life to this point, so that whole thing is simply shocking to me.  I can certainly be stubborn, especially on message board-type stuff, but it's just tough for me to believe that anyone can be that stubborn.