New Orleans ? First in Oklahoma City, later in Anaheim, Calif., and now in New Orleans, the same words have been uttered. Only the mouths have been changed to protect them from the redundancy police.
Friday it was Marquette coach Tom Crean’s turn to say, more or less, what Utah State’s Stew Morrill, Arizona State’s Rob Evans, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Arizona’s Lute Olson had stressed in the preceding weeks of the NCAA Tournament.
What do you have to do, Crean was asked on the eve of Marquette’s NCAA Final Four semifinal with Kansas University, to stop the freewheeling Jayhawks?
“First and foremost, our No. 1 focus is our transition defense,” Crean said, parroting the coaches of the four teams KU vanquished to reach the Superdome. “I think every team that plays Kansas focuses on that first because they’re so good about getting the ball up the floor.”
KU’s transition offense was particularly impressive against Arizona in the West Regional finals March 29 in California. With the Wildcats sagging on KU’s Nick Collison inside, they couldn’t free enough defenders to impede the Jayhawks’ fastbreak.
“If we don’t get back on defense in a big way,” Crean said, “the tempo will be in their favor. That’s not the way we can win.”
In the last few days, Crean has made KU’s transition game a point of emphasis with his players.
“They get a lot of percentage of their points out of the breaks,” Marquette sophomore guard Travis Diener said. “I think the more points you score, it kind of slows down that break. I mean, they do a great job either way, off a miss or a make.”
Marquette can score. The Golden Eagles shoot 40.4 percent from three-point range, and their 77.3 percent free-throw shooting percentage ranks fourth in the country. The Jesuit school in Milwaukee didn’t knock out the NCAA Midwest’s top seeds — No. 1 Kentucky and No. 2 Pittsburgh — using smoke and mirrors.
Marquette, in fact, Waded right through Pittsburgh and Kentucky. Junior All-American Dwyane Wade put up astonishing numbers in the Eagles’ astounding 83-69 romp over UK last weekend that put them in the Final Four.
Wade, a 6-foot-5 junior, scored 29 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and had 11 assists, and triple-doubles are as rare in college basketball as a no-hitter is in baseball.
If Wade puts up similar numbers in tonight’s semi against Kansas, Crean certainly would like his team’s chances of reaching Monday’s championship game. The fourth-year coach, however, won’t put that kind of pressure on his star player.
“Does he need those kind of numbers?” Crean said. “That’s not fair to put on him. That was a special, special game. He’s capable, but we need to play great team basketball against a great team. We really do.”
Diener, for one, marvels at what his backcourt teammate can do.
“At any point, he can take over a game, whether if be scoring, rebounding, getting a key steal, doing the things he does,” Diener said. “That’s what makes him the best player in the nation.”
Steve Novak, a 6-10 center who is shooting a torrid 52.9 percent from three-point range, provides one of the offensive diversions that helps keep opposing defenses from concentrating on Wade.
“Dwyane has to play well,” Novak said, “but everyone else has to step up, too.”
At the same time, the Golden Eagles have to avoid the distractions of the school’s first Final Four appearance since 1977.
“We’ve tried to find as much of a sense of normalcy as we can,” Crean said. “But watching Kansas film is a distraction because you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to get back on defense.”
