For the first two years of Carolyn Kieger’s tenure as head coach at Marquette, there hasn’t been a lot of optimism at the start of the season.
The first year, the Golden Eagles were picked to finish seventh in the league. They went on a long losing streak to open Big East play and ultimately failed to live up to the promise of seventh when they ended up as the #8 seed in the conference tournament.
Inbetween Kieger’s first two seasons, the roster was nearly completely gutted by graduations and transfers. That left her with the youngest roster in all of Division 1, and, quite fairly, they were picked to finish ninth.