Going into the his freshman campaign last year, I had fairly minimal expectations for Chase Ross. He wasn’t a heralded recruit. He wasn’t the talk of the preseason. He didn’t play in the open scrimmage. And the backcourt was fairly jammed.
In my own preseason estimates, he was going to see the lowest number of minutes of any of the healthy players.
Of course, that projection proved to be extremely idiotic. After just the 2nd game of the season, after a pair of highlight reel dunks, you could tell he wasn’t going to be a “learn-from-the-bench” guy. In the postgame radio interview, Shaka Smart used a description of Chase that to this day epitomizes what makes Ross so special.
He’s a dude.
Chase not only carved out real minutes, he became just the 4th true freshman at Marquette since 2020, and the second under Shaka, to play in at least 40% of minutes. The other names are easily recognizable as well.
2022 Kam Jones: 44.7
2021 Justin Lewis: 40.5
2021 Dawson Garcia: 74.0
Even if you don’t look at any other stats, it’s extremely difficult to carve out such a large chunk of minutes as a true freshman, but even more so on a team that finished as the best in a loaded conference, and had arguably the best full season since the 70s.
So what is it that makes me so giddy about Ross and has me carrying over the “dude” moniker into year 2?
Must Read
I mean, I’ve been meaning to write this all offseason, but as luck would have it, my procrastination has paid off in the form of an incredible prospect breakdown from the outlet No Ceilings.
https://www.noceilingsnba.com/p/thrill-of-the-chase
I can’t do it justice to how much is loaded into the article, and how much you can learn from the words and videos inside it. There’s also a great podcast following up on the article that’s a must listen.
Defense
If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, I have taken out what I think is the key reason Shaka has been calling him a dude for over a year.
It’s not common for a true freshman’s defense to be well ahead of his offense, particularly for perimeter players. But from the jump, Chase has been able to prove his worth on that end of the court. He was able to digest the team concepts, while wreaking havoc when defending on the ball, as the paragraph above notes.
Using Hoop-Explorer’s lineup data, the top 5 defensive luck adjusted 5-man lineups last season (min 50 possessions not counting garbage time), all had 2 things in common. Oso at the 5 and Chase somewhere on the court.
This, in and of itself, isn’t really attributable to Chase but it does reinforce how he was able to play with all sorts of lineups. He was versatile enough to carve out playing time, and when he was on the court, Marquette’s defense tended to take a step up.
Freshman Wall
But this isn’t to say it’s all sunshine and roses. I was sitting in the corner of the lower bowl in Columbus in Marquette’s loss to Michigan State, very close to a few guys that weren’t Marquette fans, but had put a nice wager on the MU moneyline and they were apoplectic Chase wasn’t getting pulled in the 2nd half. And for good reason.
In just 11 minutes, he committed a season high 4 turnovers and scored only 1 point, en route to an abysmal Offensive Rating of 19. Yikes doesn’t begin to describe it.
And though one game does not make a season, his play down the stretch in general was significantly worse than the way he started the season. If you split up the season into 2 chunks using Bart Torvik’s data like below, the differences are stark.
This can’t be blamed solely on level of play, as Marquette’s Big East season started in December and included some difficult non-con challenges. He was a low usage player all season, and shot at a fairly even rate from 3 in both segments (about 32%) so it wasn’t just a bit of luck earlier in the year propping up the rest of his stats.
The big eye popping number for me is the 2-point percentage. Chase is too athletic and too strong to shoot below 45% at the rim like he did at the end of the season, particularly compared to 63% in the first 3 months. And it wasn’t just the offense that struggled. Look at how the steal rate plummeted.
And if we focus instead on the team’s play using Hoop-Explorer, the same time-split yields similar results.
First 3 Months
Last 2 Months
On defense, lineups with Ross on the floor got 4 pts/100poss worse in the last 2 months compared to first 3 while the offense was 14 points worse. This isn’t all on Chase of course, but I do remember in-game chats where his lack of off ball awareness was called out.
And if we chunk out the season into 3rds rather than 2 segments, look what stands out.
Looking at this data in this way, I’m inclined to attribute it somewhat to a freshman wall. Players that haven’t played a full season of heavy minutes before (usually freshmen) tend to struggle as the calendar turns to February. It’s a physical toll and players relying on physical attributes, like Chase, might feel it more.
It could also be the gameplan changing. Teams were aware of the threat he posed in the open court and may have been more cognizant of preventing his leakout opportunities. The round robin of Big East play is no joke.
No matter the reason, it’s important to note the full scope of what freshman year Chase brought, not to bring down the hype, but rather identify the opportunity. Say there was a physical toll, a 2nd year in the program should lessen those ill effects. Even if he doesn’t take a huge jump up in any one place, having a more consistent full season will alone make his end of the year stats pop.
Not afraid of the moment
And one not necessarily statistical note that has me so giddy is that he hasn’t been phased from taking on big plays in big moments basically from the jump.
This clip below is frustrating to watch again because I still expect the result to change. But if we look at this from a view that this is just Ross’ 3rd ever college game in a very hostile environment, the takeaway changes a bit.
Ross was ready to take the big shot, missed it, tried to force it, missed again and on the 3rd try still was confident enough to hoist. Kam 100% had that big shot gene in his bag, but most true freshmen don’t. It means something to me.
What to expect when you’re expecting
You don’t have to trust months old graphs and charts to hop on to the Ross-y Posse though. Ryan’s scrimmage recap was an insight into what he looks like in the here and now.
#2 Chase Ross
https://painttouches.com/2023/10/13/quick-observations-from-2nd-annual-blue-vs-gold-scrimmage/#
Marquette fans, we have a dude. We all saw the potential last season but if this scrimmage is any indication, it is going to be realized this season. Chase brought his usual relentless defense, but his offense appears to have taken a significant jump. He shot the three with confidence, he made smart Stevie Mitchell like cuts for easy scores, and there were multiple times that he weaved through blue’s defense before finishing with a soft touch. No box score was released but I am certain that Ross led all scorers. I don’t know that he will start, but at very least he is going to make sure that the Big East sixth man of the year award stays home in the Al this season.
I don’t think he’ll be a high usage guy like he was in the scrimmage, it’s quite rare to see huge jumps from one year to the next. But what I do think we will see is a lot more on-ball action on offense using Chase, rather than just spot up opportunities on the perimeter.
Despite playing significantly less possessions, Ross had more P&R ball handling possessions than OMax last season. And the reason that stat has stuck with me is that a lot of times Ross is talked about in similar ways to OMax, despite the size disparity. Defensive first athletes that can play above the rim and sometimes shoot if left alone.
While that was a good distillation of who he was last season, I don’t think that’s a ceiling as to who Chase can or will be. He’s not a Kolek-level handler or creator, but he has shown potential in small samples to use the defense’s fear of his finishing to create easy buckets for others under the basket. In statistical terms, his assist rate of 7.4, while low, was nearly double OMax’ 3.9 last year.
The question will be is he big enough to play the 4 spot in potential 4-guard lineups. Shaka has already noted Joplin will replace OMax as a starter, but even assuming Ben Gold gets a decent bit of run as a PF, there will be 8-10 minutes each game where we might see small ball, 4-guard sets.
Ross’ strength and athleticism puts him in a spot to grab a number of those potential minutes in addition to the guard minutes he’s already slated to play.
Dunks
You think I’m going to go a full article without giving you another chance to watch Chase murder a guy?
Conclusion
Why is Chase a dude? Because he’s a physical specimen who can already play lockdown defense, has the cojones to take big shots and thrive in a team role without necessarily being the focus of it.
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