Is anyone big enough to stop Marquette? Only Kentucky and OSU are even close to MUs size

Seeing the players walk around Phoenix since last night, it was apparent why CBS Sports, opposing coaches, and ESPN radio hosts have started to talk about how much Marquette looks like a physically dominating FOOTBALL team. I ran the average weight and minutes played for the season for every team in the Sweet 16, and was amazed at how much BIGGER Marquette, Kentucky and Ohio State are than the other 13 teams still alive – and advantage that could be big as NCAA games typically grind down to half court affairs:

	Biggest teams	Height	Weight
1	Kentucky	6-foot-7	223
2	Ohio State	6-foot-6	220
3	Marquette	6-foot-4	218
4	Syracuse	6-foot-7	210
5	Michigan State	6-foot-5	210
6	Cincinnati	6-foot-4	209
7	UNC	6-foot-7	208
8	Kansas	6-foot-6	208
9	Xavier	6-foot-5	208
10	Indiana	6-foot-6	207
11	Wisconsin	6-foot-5	207
12	NC State	6-foot-6	206
13	Louisville	6-foot-4	203
14	Baylor	6-foot-5	201
15	Florida	6-foot-4	199
16	Ohio	6-foot-4	195

While the equation does give a small percentage of minutes for Otule’s early play, it also has pretty limited minutes for Davante due to the games and minutes missed with injuries. More minutes for Davante, and MU will average even more than their current 19-pound advantage per matchup against Florida tonight as we seek our 7th Elite 8 in history.

With Jae Crowder apparently even getting attention from some NFL Scouts as a potential tight end, Jay Bilas (in the 97th percentile in the national brackets) just said that Draymond Green and Jae Crowder were playing at the highest level of any player in the tournament. CBS Sports questioned if Florida’s bigs would simply be physically outmatched with Gardner and Crowder in the game. The mood as we’ve seen walking around Phoenix last night seems like a very confident group of Warriors.

All that being said, Pomeroy has Florida winning by one point. It seems Florida could use their three-guard defense to force turnovers like Louisville did, or use their four deadeye three-point shooters to keep passes one step ahead of Marquette’s rotation like Notre Dame did in their win. However, if Marquette can prevent that from happening and this turns into a typically physical NCAA tournament game, MU does look to dominate the physical match-ups.

Pos.	Florida	Height	Wt	Marquette	Height	Wt
PG	Erving Walker	5-foot-8	171	Junior Cadougan	6-foot-1	205
SG	Kenny Boynton	6-foot-2	183	Darius Johnson-Odom	6-foot-2	215
Sw	Bradley Beal	6-foot-3	196	Vander Blue	6-foot-4	200
SF	Patric Young	6-foot-9	245	Jae Crowder	6-foot-6	225
PF	Erik Murphy	6-foot-10	229	Davante Gardner	6-foot-8	290
B-PG	Mike Rosario	6-foot-3	180	Derrick Wilson	6-foot-0	215
B-SG	Scottie Wilbekin	6-foot-2	175	Todd Mayo	6-foot-3	190
B-Big	Casey Prather	6-foot-6	195	Jamil Wilson	6-foot-7	220
Inj	Will Yeguete	6-foot-7	210	Chris Otule	6-foot-11	265

To go through position by position by Value Add and NBA projections:

Starting point guard – Erving Walker is a top 50 Value Add player, while Junior is a top 500, but certainly Junior is the more traditional point guard – making the rest of the team great. Certainly power against speed in this game, as Junior will have to chase the tiny Walker on defense, but hopefully overpower him on offense.

Starting shooting guard – Kenny Boynton rates as Florida’s best player at 22nd in the country, so a little edge in Value Add, but DJO is rated ready for the NBA NOW, while Boynton is expected to be one year away.

Third Guard – Bradley Beal is a top 100 player so a big edge overall over Vander Blue – a top 500 player. Beal is also expected to be a 1st round draft pick this year, but obviously this isn’t about Blue outscoring Beal, but containing him with his great defense.

Small Forward – Patric Young is also expected to be a 1st round pick in the draft, but wasn’t close to Crowder in Value Add this year (2nd best player to 310th). He does give them someone who can try to match up against Crowder, but as CBS Sports notes, if he goes there how can anyone stop Gardner when he is in? Another huge challenge for Crowder, but we hope it goes as well as it did vs. Kevin Jones and West Virginia.

Power Forward – Davante has the edge over Erik Young in Value Add, despite missing time this year, and CBS Sports notes the potential mismatch – another reason Florida will probably try to press to make it an up-and-down game that requires Jamil to be in instead of Davante.

Back-up point guard – Mike Rosario torched MU when with Rutgers, but again Derrick’s duty if in will be similar to Blue’s – just lock down on defense.

Back-up other guard – Scottie Wilbekin ranks just behind Todd Mayo for the year in Value Add, but that counts a dry spell for Mayo who has gotten back to early season form and appears on the verge of exploding to give MU a big edge here.

Back-up big man – Obviously Jamil will start and may end up playing more than Davante, but he is virtually even with Murphy in Value Add and Casey Prather doesn’t even rank in the top 2000 in the country, so really Marquette has a 2-to-1 edge in Jamil and Davante vs. Murphy.

Injuries – pretty even, with Florida also missing a good big man in Will Yeguete, like Otule a top 500 player when he played.

We are getting pretty close to the team send off and then tip-off – hopefully MU can overpower another opponent.