Marquette-able Again within NCAA Brackets

They reached the top of the NCAA College Basketball mountain as Marquette Golden Eagles freshmen, then spent the next three seasons fighting to get back.

And now, finally, Steve Novak, Joe Chapman and Chris Grimm are once again part of the NCAA tournament, this time as the elders on a Marquette Golden Eagles team poised to take on the Alabama Crimson Tide in a first-round match-up this afternoon.

The trio's first go-round in the 2002-'03 season resulted in a trip to the Final Four, thanks in large part to the play of the irrepressible Dwyane Wade.

But injuries and inconsistent play relegated MU to the National Invitation Tournament the following two seasons, a huge fall from grace for a group of players that expected the NCAAs to become a yearly destination.

''It's been a big letdown,'' said Chapman during MU's news conference Wednesday afternoon outside Cox Arena, which is located on the campus of San Diego State University.

''You come out your first year, you go to the Final Four, you think you're supposed to get there every year. Everybody worked hard, everybody gave it their all (the next two seasons), and that's all we could do at the time,'' he added.

In 2003-'04, a four-game losing streak and then a first-round loss in the Conference USA tournament doomed the Golden Eagles. Then last year, a series of injuries to star guard Travis Diener left MU badly short-handed in the backcourt and it never recovered.

The memories aren't good ones for the trio.

''Obviously starting out with the Final Four you always want to go back,'' said Novak. ''But we also understood that it wasn't just you get to go to the Final Four (without) a lot of hard work, a lot of things coming together at the right time. Every year's different and we really haven't tried to focus too much on the past couple years.''

Novak had a huge hand in MU's Final Four run, coming off the bench to hit a number of big three-pointers. Chapman hit a couple as well, while Grimm was relegated mostly to mop-up duty while being stuck behind the likes of Robert Jackson, Scott Merritt and Terry Sanders.

All three have made sure to impart their experiences, both during the Golden Eagles' miraculous NCAA tournament run and beyond, onto their younger teammates on a regular basis this season.

Can the Marquette Golden Eagles find their way at the top of the NCAA mountain this year? Who will be crowned NCAA Champion? Bodog has the odds. Log on and visit Bodog now.