With Marquette’s 71-64 victory at Illinois, the Golden Eagles broke an over decade long streak of not winning a true road game in November (a 75-72 win at UWM on Nov 27, 2010). Some of that is that the season is starting earlier and earlier, so there are more November games, and another part is that MU doesn’t schedule a ton of road games in the opening month. But the bigger takeaway for me, is that it’s extremely difficult to win on the road early in the season.
Here’s a list of the previous Nov roadies via Oddshark.
And if you want to get even more granular, here’s the previous list of true road games in November where Marquette was an underdog.
After 26 years to the day, Marquette was able to shake free of that long dry spell.
One more note to try and quantify how impressive that victory was, using Bart Torvik’s WAB metric (which assigns a point value for how likely a given bubble team would be to win that game), Marquette’s W on Tuesday was tied for the 3rd best victory of the season to date.
Arizona at Duke: 0.8
JMU at Michigan State: 0.7
Marquette at Illinois: 0.6
Baylor vs Auburn: 0.6
Kansas vs Kentucky: 0.6
Duke vs MSU: 0.6
From any way you slice it, that was a tremendous result so early in the season.
Transition Flubs
I wanted to get that out of the way because outside of the result, the thing that stuck with me overnight was the incredible wastefulness in transition. I couldn’t believe my eyes at how Marquette was botching opportunities they usually convert at an elite level.
In these cases, I like to dive into Synergy to pull the numbers and watch the possessions, and sure enough, the eye test proved valid.
On the night, Marquette finished with 12 point on 14 possessions, a .857 PPP that is 19% lower than where Marquette ended last season, and 23% lower than this season’s average. So it significantly underperformed where this same Marquette team has proven it is an elite team.
But it gets worse. Marquette actually scored 9 points on its first 7 transition opportunities and then proceeded to lay eggs on its next 6 in varying degrees of uncharacteristic fashion, from missed dunks to blown 3 on 1s. I took screenshots of those possessions, and although you wouldn’t expect all 6 to be converted, to get 0 points was maddening.
When Sean Jones lifted up a transition 3 the possession directly after Gold’s mishandling in the screenshot above, I was ready to curl in the fetal position. Of course he drained it, and Marquette never looked back.
All of this is to say, Marquette was able to snag a multiple possession victory on the road as an underdog despite leaving an easy 6-8 points it normally converts on the table, only shooting 3/10 on unguarded spot up 3s, and missing 40% of its free throws. I can’t get over it.
King Kolek
I know sometimes injuries are played up in order to keep the opponent guessing on what to prepare, but according to Shaka Smart, in this great in depth report from the Journal Sentinel’s Ben Steele, Kolek’s ankle was truly bad enough that he was probably not going to play as of Sunday.
Of course, not only did he play, he reminded the world that although Marquette has many pieces that can hurt you at any given time, he’s still the best point guard in the country and a consensus All-American for a reason.
It wasn’t just that he stuffed the box leading the team in points (24), assists (4), defensive rebounds (6) and possessions (33%), he was able to settle the team during lulls and kept Marquette close when the Illini had their 2nd half run to take the lead.
His passing hasn’t been as crisp this season and you can tell he was gassed in the final minutes, allowing Kam to initiate most offensive possessions, but when all else fails, Marquette has something most teams don’t in Tyler.
One other note, I couldn’t help but smile as he showed his Big East pride in the post game interview. I know most opposing fanbases may hate him, but he’s as relatable a personality as I’ve ever seen.
Golden Bear
I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of the “jumbo” lineup with both Ben Gold and Oso Ighodaro on the court, but with David Joplin struggling a bit in the 2nd half, the “Golden Bear” got an extended run for over 7 minutes, a stretch that saw a 2-point deficit turn into a 3-point lead.
And while the sample sizes are wayyyy to0 small to make any overarching conclusions, it does merit looking at the fact Marquette has played quite well in the 44 possessions these two have shared in the early going. Per Hoop-Explorer, Marquette has a positive 33.3 net rating in that small sample.
Again, there’s 0 chance that Marquette will continue to see an AdjD rating under 80 the rest of the season with these 2 on the court, but what is truly eye popping to me is the rebounding rates. Marquette still isn’t good at corralling defensive boards, but the 28.6% OReb rate allowed is much better that the awful 35.3% allowed when Oso and Gold aren’t on the floor together.
And this is where Ben in particular has seen an incredible leap since last season. Per KenPom, he’s more than tripled his DReb% and maintained a very good OReb%.
The offense may not be as crisp or fluid in Golden Bear lineups, but if these two can lock up a speedy, wing heavy team like Illinois, it’s an extremely encouraging sign of things to come.
Unguarded Spot Ups
I haven’t really mentioned the defense much, and that’s an oversight on my part, because that is truly why Marquette won last night. It created 15 turnovers with some aggressive doubles and generally made Illinois work for everything with physical perimeter play.
But that strategy, while very successful in terms of the result, may look less rosy looking under the hood at the process.
Illinois took 15 unguarded spot up attempts last night, the most a Marquette team has given up since the 32 point drubbing by North Carolina in the 2022 NCAA Tournament and 3rd worst in the Shaka era, with UCLA’s rout being the other one over 15. It did seem like it was a strategy Marquette would live with, but felt a bit fortunate that they only hit 5/15, a 33.3% success rate compared to the 7/17 Illinois had converted on in its first 2 games in these scenarios.
I’m always one to preach process > result, and combined with the 14 unguarded spot ups given up to Rider, puts Marquette in some poor company, with the highest percent of unguarded spot ups in the conference, per Synergy.
Could just be early season tinkering, but it’s something to keep an eye on going forward.
Free Throw Magic
I have no idea how it’s possible, but the trend from last year, where Oso becomes near automatic from the stripe in clutch situations, while struggling to hit rim the rest of the game has continued into this season. It’s the wildest thing.
Oso went 1-5 on free throws before hitting two big ones with 2:49 left to put Marquette back up 6.
Going Forward
That result, coupled with Wisconsin’s blowout loss to Providence, shifted a few of the projected game projections on KenPom, to give us a truly terrifying glimpse into what the numbers are telling us.
It won’t stay this way if MU beats UCLA and has to play Kansas, but still, this is something to behold.
Marquette is an elite team with national title aspirations, and it’s not MU fans who are just saying that.
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