I like to give the season a little bit of time to breath before diving into the numbers, as a 2 or 3 game sample just isn’t large enough to give us a sample worth dissecting. So as you read, keep that at top of mind. Swapping 3 misses for makes (or vise versa) changes entire discussions. It’s not worth getting too worked up about, positively or negatively.
Ben Gold 3s
You knew exactly after that intro, didn’t you. The biggest talking point I see from Marquette’s 3-0 start to the season has to do with Ben Gold’s shooting.
It’s not just that Gold is shooting a paltry 19% from distance on 21 attempts, it’s that 80% of his field goal attempts on the season have come from behind the arc. As a reminder, he set a record last season as a high major player taller than 6’10” by taking 78% of his shots from 3-pt land, the highest rate for a big since at least 2008, per BartTorvik.com. So it doesn’t come at a surprise, per se, just that it’s much less ideal to shoot that much with such little accuracy.
And there’s another point that merits mentioning. Gold hasn’t just been jacking up attempts like a side character in Along Came Polly, he’s taken really good, open, in rhythm 3s that have Shaka and Nevada’s blessing.
Per Synergy, all 21 of his 3s have been of the catch and shoot variety, which are significantly more efficient than dribble jumpers, and more shockingly, Synergy classifies 16 of those as “unguarded” or open. Last season, the D1 average for unguarded spot up 3s was 1.13 PPS (37.6% accuracy). The D1 average for guarded spot ups was 0.968 PPS (32.2% accuracy). So we have large scale evidence that unguarded spot ups are 17% more efficient than their guarded counterparts.
Gold leads the country in volume with 16, but of the 70 players with double digit attempts, Gold ranks 65th, making only 3 of those 16 attempts.
On the one hand, you figure this is a small sample blip, and you encourage him to continue shooting through it, backing him with full confidence. On the other hand, at some point you are falling into an opponent’s trap, as they don’t think you are worth covering, and would love to see you launch it 8+ times a game.
Having talked to Nevada directly, and listened to Shaka multiple times, they will say they have full confidence in Ben, and continue to back up his shooting, even through a dry spell.
Here’s a plot of Gold’s 3pt shooting by game in his career, with his season percentage rolling average in green. He’s been a very slow starter each season (though on much) smaller volume. Panicking after 3 games makes no sense.
Here’s the same chart, but tracked to his career percentage. He’s not a great shooter based on a large volume of data, but not an abysmal one either. Leveling out around 33% to 35% seems the logical destination.
At the same time though, Shaka and Nevada will advocate for more aggressiveness inside the arc. You can’t have opponents clogging lanes knowing you are only going to be active at the perimeter.
I said it in the season preview and I’ll say it again. Ben Gold is too good a finisher to only have 5 attempts from inside the arc this season. Marquette loves the spacing he provides, but it needs his ability to penetrate as well.
P&R Screening
One very tangible change I hope we see throughout the season is the distribution of the “pick and roll man” play type, which tracks the possessions where the screener ends up with the ball. With Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro running the best 2-man game we may have ever seen, Marquette was elite at this play type, finishing in the top 80% of efficiency each of the last 3 season. That won’t be the case this year, and I don’t expect it to, but the shot distribution feels lopsided.
This season, 80% of “P&R Man” possessions are ending in 3pt attempts. It’s never been over 32% under Shaka. This isn’t unexpected, Joplin and Gold are shooters and Kam is finding them often, but the distribution is too lopsided. Defenses know exactly what’s going to happen after a pick, and it’s not a roll.
I went through every offensive possession with Gold as the screener against Central Michigan, and of the 10 screens he set, he popped to the perimeter on 8 of them, and only rolled to the rim on 1. And again, this has created great looks against overmatched teams, but as opponents size and athleticism increases, and they scout for this, it will only make those looks harder to come by and easier to guard.
Which is why I had to clip this from Monday.
Royce Parham gave us vintage Oso for a possession, slipping the screen beautifully and finishing with a soft float touch. This won’t be available every time, of course, but being less one dimensional with the screener movement (particularly for Gold) will be imperative going forward.
Royce Parham Breakout?
And let’s come back to something else here. Royce Parham has been a revelation.
I was lucky to see both Parham and Damarius Owens in person earlier this year, and I came away thinking Royce didn’t have the athleticism to make an impact early on. Now is the time to point and laugh at me.
Maybe that game skewed things for me, but Parham has really impressed me with his activity level, particularly on the defensive end. He doesn’t look slow footed when switched out and isn’t getting lost off ball.
We will see how he holds up against better competition, but again, we have seen multiple games of really encouraging signs.
If we break down the bigs this season, Parham has played 23 minutes as the sole 5, nowhere near enough to make any definitive conclusions, but still you can see the sharp contrast to Cadin’s 22 minutes below.
Parham is +23 so far, while Caedin is -1. And when paired with Gold, Parham they are +6 in 10 minutes.
Once more, it is futile to analyze plus minus with such little sample. I’m not saying bench Caedin forever and make Royce the primary backup. What I am noting is that his impact on the court has been much more positive than I expected at this point in time, and that’s the exact kind of addition Marquette needs.
And one more thing, for all the Gold grumbling, Marquette has been at its best so far with him on the court, particularly from a defensive perspective. Friday will be a stern test to see how these trends hold, but if you have complained about Ben’s defense to date, you may be missing the forest for the trees.
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