Marquette is a bonafide national title contender. That’s the biggest takeaway.
Sure, a preseason AP top-5 team probably fell into that bucket in the eyes of many, but following a week+ in which they went 3-1 against four top-30 teams, all away from home, it isn’t simply an extension of expectations.
Last year’s team was great. Elite. Title worthy even, finishing with Marquette’s highest ever KenPom rating, even above that of the 2003 Final Four squad.
And after 3 incredible days in Hawaii, I think it’s not a stretch to say this team is actually better.
Sophomore Leaps
What makes me say such a thing (particularly when I was the most bearish of the bunch in making predictions)? While we could pretty much bank on Tyler Kolek, Oso Ighodaro and Kam Jones to be All-Conference level performers once more, it was a bit of a stretch, in my opinion, to expect the rising sophomore class to all take similar type leaps.
And yet, each of the three showed that the positive play we saw against Rider and Northern Illinois wasn’t limited to just overmatched cupcakes.
For me in particular, Sean Jones has been the biggest revelation. Going into the season, I honestly thought he’d be struggling to even match last season’s minute average. It wasn’t that I thought he regressed in any way, but simply that Marquette’s deep guard rotation and need for size would make it difficult for him to carve out a significantly bigger role.
Boy was I wrong.
Against defenses ranked 3rd, 5th and 14th in the nation on Ken Pom, Sean was a blur of speed and able to not just get to the rim but finish at a high level.
Take a look at his FG% by area of the court last year compared to this one.
While he could always get to the rim, his increased awareness to both change pace and avoid getting lost in the forest has turned him into an elite finisher at the rim. Sure, it’s only a handful of games and 15 attempts, but his decision making already has taken leaps ahead of where it had been.
Sean has morphed from a speedy change of pace option, to a trusted piece on both ends of the court, featuring in closing lineups against both UCLA and Kansas in crunch time, something that wasn’t even in the realm of possibilities last season.
As for Chase Ross, he already played a significant role in 2023, so his rise isn’t surprising in the slightest. But while he struggled against Purdue, he’s currently ahead of Stevie Mitchell in minutes played and barely behind David Joplin.
Ross’ shooting isn’t great yet, but he’s a tenacious driver and has done a fabulous job getting to the line. In just 6 games, he’s already taken half as many free throws as last year, increasing his free throw rate from 26.5 to to 53.1. He’s trustworthy on defense and tied with Oso for the 3rd best defensive rebounding rate.
I still think there’s another level he can hit, but even from what we’ve already seen, Chase will be in contention for 6th man of the year in the Big East.
As for Ben Gold, while his 3-point shooting is as tempting as ever, his increased ability to defend on the perimeter has allowed Shaka to play both him and Oso together in the Golden bear lineup fairly frequently, helping to mitigate some of Marquette’s rebounding woes. On the season, Marquette is 11 points better at preventing opponents from grabbing offensive rebounds with both Oso and Gold on the floor, while it’s an incredible 18 points better on the offensive glass with those two.
With Sean, Chase, and Ben all proving to be able to fill in with nary a drop on either end, it allows Marquette to be extra aggressive defensively, extending that energy for a longer stretch than was possible at any point last year.
Elite Defense
Which leads to something of a revelation for me. I thought losing an NBA-level defender in OMax Prosper, a player that could truly switch 1 through 5 and lock down other NBA-level talents, would cause Marquette significant issues on the defensive end. In fact, the start of the season confirmed my priors. MU gave up 37 open spot up 3s in the first 3 games, a rate that would rank worst in the Big East and in the bottom 5% nationally. They were just getting lucky in that opponents weren’t hitting.
And yet, the common them coming out of Maui is that Marquette’s defense can be great. And it’s not just commentators and fans saying so.
Marquette currently ranks 17th on KenPom for AdjD ranking and 25th in TRank, which become more impressive when you find out neither had MU projected as a top-25 team defensively coming into the season, with KP at 28 and TRank at 34. The reason this matters is that this isn’t previous season results propping up early sample sizes, this is current performance outweighing the past.
And sure, the Purdue game wasn’t necessarily a bastion of elite D, but even with the first half foul trouble and significant 3-point luck from Purdue, Marquette was able to chip away at a double digit second half deficit on the basis of much improved defense.
While Edey and the Boilermakers made Marquette play on the offensive glass, grabbing 41% of its misses, Marquette’s rebounding was actually a surprising feature in Maui, holding UCLA to only 20% and Kansas to 29.4% of misses. Defensive rebounding will never be a strength, but if Marquette can be slightly below average, it’s overactive defense that creates turnovers galore can help mitigate some of that deficit on the glass.
I’ll have to dive deeper to see what changes the defense has made this season, but unlike my fears, the week in Maui proved that Marquette’s ceiling will not be held back by its defense.
Oso Awesome
No player in the country had a bigger week than Oso Ighodaro. Sure, Edey was amazing and won MVP, but as reigning player of the year, it wasn’t necessarily a surprise. But reading Tweet after Tweet and article after article, you’d think Ighodaro was an unknown last year, not a stalwart on a top-10 team.
What is true is that as good as Oso was last season, he has taken another leap this year.
Increasing usage while maintaining efficiency is very difficult, and Oso’s early 4-point jump in usage isn’t just cupcake stat padding. He took on 3 of the best bigs in the country Bona, Dickinson and Edey, and posted his three best ORatings of the season.
But what makes Oso so special isn’t just the offensive production, but the fact he’s the lynchpin of Marquette’s defense. His increased strength allows him to body up bigger centers but he has maintained all of his quickness, adeptly switching onto smaller players.
Put it together, and it’s no surprise that Oso had the best plus/minus tally at the Maui Invite of all players.
He’s been a fringe 1st rounder in recent mock drafts, but Maui secured that he’s not just a college novelty. He’s a pro.
Now let’s watch his dunks once more.
Paint Prowess
And this will be my final takeaway. The Maui rims that are usually pillow soft were anything but at the new location. But combined with the NBA 3-point line on the floor, made for an atrocious week of shooting collectively.
Over its 3 games, Marquette shot a scary 28.9% from distance. That’s not just bad, it would rank 281st over a full season. And with a relatively undersized squad, such off shooting nights would normally spell doom for a team that takes plenty of 3s.
But wait there’s more, Marquette wasn’t just clanking against average teams, it faced some incredible defenses in Maui. UCLA is ranked 13th, Kansas 3rd and Purdue 5th.
Imagine telling someone Marquette would shoot under 30% from distance against 3 top-15 defenses. The only question would be how badly did it lose those games. The fact that they not only went 2-1, but had a shot to get the 3rd as well should make you giddy. This is a team that can shoot well, we think, but does not need to in order to win.
I was worried that some of last season’s paint prowess would revert with the loss of OMax and regression from some incredibly elevated levels. But even against an incredibly high level of opposition, Marquette is still hitting over 66% at the rim, with 37% of all shots coming there, as shown below.
Tyler and Kam are elite at getting downhill and finishing, Oso has perfected the 3 to 8-foot push shot, Sean’s improvement has been noted, while Chase has improved as well. It isn’t one player that’s responsible, the team as a whole is fantastic in this regard.
And again, this is without great shooting. UCLA was collapsing 2 to 3 players on every Kolek drive. I would wager immense amounts that Marquette won’t shoot 30% from the corner for a full season. Once that level unlocks, the paint game will become even more productive. And that should scare every team MU has to play this season.
Conclusion
This team is special. This season’s heightened expectations should make any Marquette fan incredibly excited. And if you aren’t ready to run through a wall yet, let’s relive Shaka’s post-Kansas comments once more.
Enjoy every minute we have left with this crew.
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