It was late November, and Steve Wojciechowski held a meeting of the minds within the film room inside the Al McGuire Center. The meeting itself was nothing new – the first year Marquette University head coach routinely sits with assistants Mark Phelps, Brett Nelson and Chris Carrawell, talking basketball and breaking down games.

But this one was different.

It followed a surprise 97-89 loss at the BMO Harris Bradley Center to Nebraska-Omaha on Nov. 22 and a tight 62-57 victory over NJIT, also at home.

And the 2-2 Golden Eagles were about to head to Orlando for a three-game tournament, leading off with Georgia Tech.

Four games in, something had to change.

Since his hiring on April 1, Wojciechowski has seen his team turn over, literally, before his eyes. Todd Mayo stood behind him in his initial press conference. Three weeks later, senior guard Matt Carlino transferred in from Brigham Young University, and he was followed by Wally Ellerson.

Just shy of four months after Wojciechowski’s hire, Mayo left the university.

The team also worked with center Luke Fischer in practice while he was ineligible per NCAA transfer rules, incorporating post offense in the McGuire Center that looked far different, and less effective, with the undersized Steve Taylor and Juan Anderson in games.

Through nine games, at least offensively, the team was operating with a dual identity of sorts.

Then, once Fischer was set to become eligible for the Arizona State contest on Dec. 16, Deonte Burton and John Dawson transferred out.

Eight eligible scholarship players were left for rest of the way.

"Every situation’s unique," Wojciechowksi said. ‘Obviously, here, since I’ve taken over, there’s been a lot of different, unusual situations that you can’t predict. But that’s coaching. Coaching is, across the board, with few, rare exceptions, is very unpredictable. That’s what it is. You have to be able to make adjustments and understand you always try to do what’s in the best interest of the team."

Changes had to come.

"8 Strong"

The Golden Eagles are at No. 7 Villanova tonight, with a 10-11 record overall and a 2-7 mark in the Big East.

Two of those conference losses came in overtime to Georgetown and Butler. Three others, to DePaul, Xavier and St. John’s, were by a combined 10 points.

Wojciechowski’s consistent with his message, regardless of outcome: work hard, play hard; effort all day, every day.

Clearly, that helps, but it doesn’t always translate to victory.

"Our margin for error is not very big," he said with a knowing smile, following a loss to Seton Hall last week. "We have to do most things right to have a chance to win."

The margin is thinned in large part because the team can't practice the way the coaches would like.

Ellenson, who is sitting out this year per NCAA transfer rules, has been available, but the team didn't have a walk-on to provide a body until a week before Fischer became eligible, bringing on a former high school guard in Pete Thaus.

That lasted less than two weeks, as Thaus was gone and Michael and Matthew Mache were added as walk-ons just before the end of 2014.

"The biggest adjustment for us is really, can we practice?," assistant coach Brett Nelson said. "Because with limited numbers, you still have to be able to practice. So, you’ve got to be creative in the things that you do in practice to drill what you need to drill and to make your team better on a daily basis."

Derrick Wilson turned from the television cameras and looked over his left shoulder to the court in the BMO Harris Bradley Center. Carlino was lifting shots, along with the lone true freshman on the roster, Sandy Cohen III, and redshirt freshman Duane Wilson.

Nelson was in shorts, spinning a ball. Wojciechowski was in a Marquette t-shirt and navy blue shorts.

They weren’t sweating. Yet.

"It has been fun," Wojciechowski said. "It’s probably not what most common people would consider fun you know?"

He smiled.

"But I love the game of basketball and I love the challenge of trying to build a team and rebuild a program. Within that process there’s ups and downs. I’d like to be able to have a team that can field two, five-man squads in practice, ideally, but that’s not a reality. So, we’re going to get to that point. We need to continue to grow. We have made strides. Certainly we have many more strides to make."

Technically, there are 11 players on the Marquette roster. But the 2014-15 campaign is being defined by eight.

"When coach say ‘eight strong,’ it’s really just eight strong," Duane Wilson said. "We’re working hard every day and I feel like we’re getting better as a team. We don’t have too many players so, it’s really just bonding. I feel as a team we’re really growing and we just gotta keep on making steps every day."

Wojciechowski and his staff are working – hard – to push the legs in front of one another, to make this work, this season, regardless of the circumstances and talent level.

"With not that many guys playing, coach has had to manage how our practices go from an aspect of not burning us out," Carlino said. "I don’t know if at Duke, if ever they went through anything like this, so for any coach, this has been tough to have this many players and all the roster moves. coach has handled it really well. We feel good. And practices have been good. He’s always just getting us prepared to play in the games."

Changing on the fly

Derrick Wilson is one of just two "homegrown" seniors on the roster, having played in 117 games to date for the Golden Eagles. The 2011-12 team he was a part of was ranked as high as No. 8 in the country, and advanced to the Sweet 16. The 2012-13 squad ran to the Elite Eight.

And last year he watched it fall apart. This year, the transition has been made easier by how strong a hand Wojciechowski and the staff have placed behind the players through it all. 

The senior guard can't help but be impressed.

"It’s how they handled it," Wilson said.

It began with the three-game tournament in Orlando was going to be an experiment. What came out of the film room pow wow after the NJIT squeaker was that the Golden Eagles were going to move away from a man-to-man defense, and transition into a zone.

It doesn’t sound like much, not on paper, or even as an idea.

"Steve’s been through this kind of thing before," ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas said of having to adjust on the fly. "They had to do it in 2010 when they made all the changes in the way they played at Duke (before winning a national title). He did it when he as a player. He played at Duke in one of the more turbulent times in the program’s history, really, when coach K was out, so he’s seen – he’s wise beyond his years. I know that.

"Playing a little bit of zone isn’t going to shake him."

That is true.

But, truth is in the details.

A cloudless sky is, indeed, blue. But without the blue light from the sun being dispersed through unseen molecules at a higher rate; and if the human eye operated differently and was more receptive of violet, well, then the sky wouldn’t be blue.

With no true big man, with just nine players at the time, with little practice, Wojciechowski changed the details.

"With ‘Wojo’ being a first year coach, you wouldn’t expect him to make that adjustment, but to do that, the 1-3-1, our 'horns,' which is our 2-3 zone, going full court and mixing up defenses and keep teams off guard, I give ‘Wojo’ credit," said Carrawell, another Duke disciple of the man-to-man doctrine.

Carrawell watched up close how Wojciechowski built his reputation as a dogged on ball defender – so much so he was the national defensive player of the year in 1998 – and then was similarly impressed with his former teammates quick recognition that something needed to change.

"He’s known man-to-man for 20 years," Carrawell said. "To make that change is not an easy thing to do. It goes against everything you believe in, so to speak. But give him credit. He did it."

Nelson agreed. The former All-American at Florida looked over at Wojciechowski entertaining a media scrum recently at the BMO Harris Bradley Center and said "Really, to be able to swallow his pride a little bit where we’re more of a zone team now; he’s done a great job teaching it.

"He’s done a great job of getting our guys to buy in. As a coach, whatever you do, you gotta have your guys to buy in. I think that’s one of his greatest qualities. He gets people to buy in to the team and what we’re doing."

The other major adjustment occurred when the 6-foot, 11-inch Fischer finally was eligible to play in mid-December. The same post plays run now for the Indiana transfer were run before with the 6-7 Steve Taylor and 6-6 Juan Anderson in the paint, but the results – and the reaction from opponents – was far different.

A big part of the scouting process is figuring out how to score on an opponent, and the Golden Eagles had to translate what they did in short handed practices with Fischer to game action.

"When you’re as good a player as Luke, we have to make adjustments for him because he needs to be a key part of what we’re doing," Wojciechowski said. "So it’s not just his adjustment, but it’s the team’s adjustment to him. And, those are things that can take time."

It didn’t take long for Fischer to command immediate double teams, so there has been an adjustment there as well. Carlino, a lifelong point guard at BYU but this team’s most accomplished shooter, had to be moved off the ball to facilitate scoring. The 6-6 Cohen III started in the post, but now has transitioned out to the wing.

Even with so few players, Wojciechowski has kept them moving, guiding them to places on the board where, at some point, the checkmate could come.

Obviously, not every player had bought in beginning April 1. But those that remain, have, and then doubled down.

"We don’t have the average personnel for a team," Derrick Wilson said. "That impressed me, their intelligence of how to get guys to play multiple positions and still be effective in the game, in all aspects. Just their drive, never giving up. They’re always right there just encouraging. And the skill development. They’re all great coaches."

The long view

Juan Anderson, who, like Derrick Wilson, experienced deep NCAA Tournament runs his first two year at Marquette, and Carlino, aren’t playing for the Golden Eagles of the future. There is no "next year" for the three seniors.

Anderson pointed that out following the loss to Seton Hall, saying the team’s struggles this year can’t be chalked up to the development of Cohen III, Duane Wilson and Fischer.

They want to win, tonight, tomorrow, and in whatever tournament they find themselves in.

This falls in lock step with the coaching staff. It’s the creed: Win every day.

But – but – it is a transition year.

"I’ve watched Marquette quite a bit and I think Steve’s done a great job of laying a foundation down and building a culture," Bilas said. "Marquette’s had a great history and tradition and they’ve had a great culture there, but anytime you have a coaching change, there’s a reason for it, and I think they have to upgrade their talent and they have to re-establish the culture that they want there. I think Steve’s done a really good job of that."

You hear it from the head coach, too.

Wojciechowski talks about the "growth mindset," about teaching the players who will continue on with the program the proper habits to, indeed, win every day.

Duane Wilson says even the film sessions are intense; that the mental and emotional toll required by the head coach to travel with him down the long road being as big an adjustment as the physical one imposed by Big East big men.

And what is a habit? It’s not something ingrained over 20 games, or even one season.

"That’s what we’re trying to grow towards," Wojciechowski said. "We’re a work in progress. … We’re not where we want to be, certainly, and a lot of that is just continued growth and maturation."

"Nobody wants to do well now more than Steve does, so, you attack each day and try to win each game and do your best each day with a plan of the long view, of laying things down properly for the future," Bilas added. "You know, it’s kind of like when you’re building a house – everybody would like to have a beautiful house the first day. But you have to lay the foundation right and all that. It doesn’t mean you’re not … you have to focus on each nail your driving in. And that’s what he’s doing."

Wojciechowski’s first recruiting class is a already a consensus top 10 group – and one that isn’t complete yet – and is headlined by McDonald’s All-American and national player of the year candidate Henry Ellenson or Rice Lake.

How good those players can be as true freshman, along with how much further the current group develops over another summer under this staff, the long road may be be shorter than any imagined.

"Steve is doing a heck of a job with this lineup," Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard said. "He has good players, but he doesn’t have the depth right now, which is really tough. I’ve been in his spot. But the way these guys play and how hard they play, it is tough to do in your first year.

"I tell you what, he’s going to have this thing revving again, unfortunately by next year."