Spin Zone

From the usually good Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Wednesday's Marquette-DePaul game.

"The Blue Demons are coming off an exciting 67-66 victory over Notre Dame in
which sophomore forward Wilson Chandler went off for 25 points and 14 rebounds. The Golden Eagles are 1-2 in their last three games against DePaul
at Allstate Arena, with an 82-79 victory coming last season."

Alright. Fine. We're trying to create drama. Marquette going on the road, and it's true, tomorrow night will be a challenge, but no more so than any other road game (Of which Marquette is 5-2 this season, 7-2 away from the Bradley Center.....see how I spun the stats right there to say something the complete opposite of what Rosiak is trying to say?)

And yes, Marquette is 1-2 in their last three trips to the Allstate. However, this ignores the fact that Marquette has gone 32-4 in their last 36 meetings with DePaul, and since the 2000-01 season, MU has gone 4-2 at the Allstate. Funny what omission does to statistics.

OK, maybe you can't use long-term stats for college sports because players graduate and teams turn over (I think you can on some level because it speaks to the recruiting capabilities and infrastructure of the coaching staff and athletic department, which in college sports seems to be half the battle.)

But taking Rosiak's assumption that you can only go back a few years (hence the inclusion of the 2004 loss, but not the Marquette victories that preceded it), and only those recent results are relevant, then he would have noticed that no players on the 2003-04 team (whose loss he cites) are still on the Marquette roster. Likewise only two current DePaul players (Sammy Mejia and Marcus Heard) played in that game for DePaul.

Likewise, Ousmane Barro is the only Marquette holdover from the 2005 loss, where he played 9 minutes. 5 DePaul players remain from the 2005 game.

I guess I expected more from Rosiak. Either all the recent results are valid, or only the ones with some semblance of the current roster are valid.