While little was expected of from the Marquette Men's Basketball team in the 2014-2015 season, they have disappointed their fans so far. With only nine eligible players and none over 6'7" until Indiana transfer Luke Fischer becomes eligible on December 14th, it was expected they would struggle greatly in the first month of the season. However, no one expected them to be as bad as they have been.

While they looked okay against Tennessee-Martin on the opening day of the season, they were poor in the loss against Ohio State and were dreadful in the home loss to Nebraska-Omaha. While they rebounded marginally on Monday night, beating New Jersey Institute of Technology 62-57 it was still a dreadful performance. 

While it was a very disappointing performance on Monday, it was still a win. The same cannot be said for last Saturday's loss to Nebraska-Omaha. Your humble correspondent was in attendance for that one, and the Golden Eagles were absolutely horrendous.

In their first home loss to a mid-major school since 2006, and their defense was ripped to shreds. The lack of any sort of interior defender was thoroughly exposed, and they could not stop the Mavericks on the fast break. 

In addition to being ripped apart defensively, they were outrebounded 40-24. Those numbers are staggering. Nebraska-Omaha, a team in only their third season as a Division I program, outrebounded a team only one year removed from winning a share of the Big East Conference regular season title and a place in the Elite Eight.

In addition to having only 13 offensive rebounds to Omaha's 29 defensive rebounds, and Marquette had the same number of defensive rebounds as Omaha had offensive rebounds with 11. While it was a very close, competitive game and neither school every really pulled away, it never seemed like the Golden Eagles would win. It never felt as if they could stop the Mavericks offense, and fans must shudder to imagine what it will be like facing Frank Kaminsky and the Wisconsin Badgers in less than two weeks.

On Thursday, Marquette will take on Georgia Tech in the first round of the Orlando Classic to kick off a run of very difficult games. Should they manage to spring what can only be thought of as an upset, they will likely take on Michigan State. After that would come a likely match-up with either Kansas or Tennessee. Then, a week from Saturday, they will host Wisconsin.

Wisconsin, the number two team in the nation, is led by Wooden Award candidate Kaminsky, and the player who is arguably the best in the nation will have a six-inch height advantage on anyone who guards him. After the inability of the Golden Eagles to stop anyone inside was exposed against Omaha, this writer can only imagine what Kaminsky will do. 

While the first couple weeks of the season have been trying for Marquette fans, it will only get more difficult. New head coach Steve Wojciechowski has secured a great recruiting class to come in next season, and appears to be doing most things right but things look like they will get worse before they get better.