Assessing Marquette’s noncon season: player grades

With non-conference play complete for Marquette, it’s time to bust out the grading scale and see where everyone stacks up through 1/3rd of the season. As a reminder, I do take a player’s expectations and role into account.

Kam Jones: A+

I think this is the easiest grade I’ve ever given. Kam has been one of the 3 best players in the country, and that’s the national media all saying so, not me a Kam fanboy. As good as I thought he could be, he’s been significantly better.

He ranks 3rd in KenPom’s player of the year rankings, and third in Hoop-Explorer’s RAPM, so it isn’t just a media narrative, the hard numbers he’s putting up are insane.

Here are a couple long form and video pieces if you want to see just how special he’s been.

Cracked Sidewalks: https://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2024/12/weve-got-basketball-jones.html
247 Sports: https://x.com/AdamFinkelstein/status/1867588247712673794
No Ceilings: https://www.noceilingsnba.com/p/kam-jones-is-playing-like-a-star

The only thing I’ll add, Marquette needs him at this ridiculously high level to be good. With him on the court, Marquette has outscored opponents by 187 points. With him off the court, Marquette has been outscored by 25.

This isn’t a small sample, and it isn’t normal, even when comparing to previous all-everything guards like Tyler Kolek or Markus Howard.

Chase Ross: A

I probably could bump Chase up a bit, he’s been that good for Marquette this season, I just wanted to note that Kam’s level of great to date has been in the historic range, while Ross’ is more in the stuff of humans.

What in particular has me raving about Chase? He’s taken an enormous leap offensively. He’s always been a ferocious dunker thriving in spot up and transition opportunities, but this season, his game has seen growth in other ways.

Looking at the year by year Synergy play type splits, Chase has increased his volume while also increasing his efficiency across the top-3 play types, per game (2025 is a the top, 2023 at the bottom).

This is also reflected in his overall KenPom stats where he’s at a career high in usage while also setting a career high in ORtg.

I still would like him to be bit more aggressive, as 17% usage seems low, but looking at his career progression and the impact he’s having most games, it’s a great sign for Marquette and for his professional prospects.

As for the defense, it’s elite and you can read much much more about it here.

Chase is on the case

Stevie Mitchell: A

For most of the season, when Stevie checks out of the game he’ll go hop on a stationary bike instead of sitting on the bench. He has significant visible taping around his heel and Achilles. Shaka has even said he is limited in practice at times due to lingering injuries.

The man has been playing hurt all year and yet he’s putting together his most complete season in a Marquette uniform. He’s currently setting career highs in basically every offensive stat while also playing elite level defense.

We’ve seen it from a few players, so it may seem normal, but jumping up this much in usage AND ORtg is rare. Stevie isn’t just sitting in the corner and grabbing loose balls this season, he’s usually the 2nd or 3rd option on a given possession, and doing so while playing more minutes.

He is not afraid to take the big shot or hit the clutch free throw, and leaves every ounce of himself every time he steps on the court. I can’t say enough about him.

Ben Gold: B+

Ben may be the biggest lightning rod on the team. The volume of hate I see for him in my mentions surpasses basically everyone combined. And frankly, it’s completely undeserved.

No, he’s not Oso Ighodaro, but Oso was arguably one of the greatest center’s Marquette has had, so frankly I didn’t expect him to be. What I think has stuck out in people’s minds is the slow start from a 3-pt shooting perspective. After 4 games, he was only shooting 20.8% on 3s on high volume (6 per game) and most of those being wide open, unguarded looks.

Since then, though, Gold has hit 42.1% of his long-range attempts, and still doing so on 5+ shots a game. I had started tracking it earlier his season, but the chart does a great job illustrating he’s always been a slow starter before settling into a groove.

And we haven’t even mentioned the defense. There was lots of concern about the lack of rim protection after losing Oso, and though there have been lapses, Gold has been great defensively. He does a solid job when switched on to smaller players and doesn’t get bodied easily inside.

Against the best opposition Marquette has faced (top-150 opponents), MU is 3 times better with Gold on than with him off the floor, even filtering out garbage time.

Now that doesn’t mean I think he’s at his ceiling, I do think he has more to show driving the rim. Per barttorvik.com, 80.5% of Gold’s shots this season have been 3s, which is still too high for my liking, given his athleticism and ability to finish at the rim. Want to see way more of this as the year progresses.

https://twitter.com/MarquetteMBB/status/1868090774505795654

David Joplin: B

I had the most difficult time with Joplin’s grade than anyone else. On the one hand, his offense has been incredibly irregular and he’s only shooting 31% from 3 on a team high 79 attempts. On the other hand, his offensive detonations have been timely and necessary. His late scoring burst sealed what was a very close game against George Mason and his 29 points against Georgia won him KenPom MVP honors for only the 3rd time in his career.

But on a team that needs Joplin to score and create for himself, the lack of regularity is troublesome. He has 5 KenPom ORtg sub-100 games and his usage is more volatile than ever. Again, going back to the point I made about Gold, how his misses have come also makes a huge difference. To date, Joplin is only 3/17 on unguarded spot up jumpers (17%), compared to the 39% he shot those last season. And some of those misses haven’t been close.

And yet… David Joplin has been one of Marquette’s best defender’s this season, and not just in a grading-on-a-curve sense either. Jop leads the team in defensive rebounding rate with a career best 16.5% and has he highest steal rate of his career, 2.2%, while being 2nd on the team in block rate with 3.9%. But numbers don’t fully capture what he’s been able to do. Unlike previous seasons, where he had difficulty maintaining off-ball awareness, he’s been locked in all season and a genuine asset.

And one more note, though I talked a bunch about his offensive struggles behind the arc, it’s also important to call out Joplin is getting to the rim more than ever in his career and finishing at a higher rate than ever (freshman year not withstanding). Not limiting himself to just a 3 and D wing will help this team plenty going forward.

Overall, I think he’s been a net positive, and better than “average,” but as Shaka himself said on his radio show, he’s hardest on Joplin because he feels he has so much more to give this team.

Zaide Lowery: B-

I’ve waffled on Zaide a bunch because if you look at his stats, he hasn’t been great. He has a below-average ORtg and hasn’t really expanded his offensive game much. He’s only played 11+ minutes once in the 6 Q1 games, and even then finished with 2 points in 19 minutes against Dayton. The TO rate has exploded and he’s only shooting 21% from 3.

So why do I have him at a B-? I think my personal expectation of him being a secondary bench piece with a defensive focus plays here. But mostly, when he went down with a knee injury and missed 2 games, it really highlighted how despite having a limited role, his absence is felt acutely. As in, I was dying for a player of his skillset against Iowa State, even if it was only for a couple breathers. While he wasn’t a huge impact player against Dayton in extended minutes, he was the best rebounder on the bench and didn’t make a lot of mistakes.

Basically, a bit of regression on 3s and similar level of defense will be perfect for the role Zaide has to play on this team. I’m so, so glad he’s back and healthy.

Tre Norman: F

I feel awful about this, but don’t think there is any other grade for Tre right now. He has an ORtg of 71 and can’t be trusted with the ball most possessions. One of the reasons Kam’s On/Off splits are so eye-popping is that Tre has not been able to step into the role as a spot PG on either end of the floor.

I’m hoping some of this is related to a late-offseason shoulder injury that had him miss some time in October, and do want to note that he’d played his best game of the season in 12 minutes against Wisconsin. But even then, he followed it up with a particularly rough game in only 4 minutes at Dayton.

I am not giving up on Tre and think his best days are ahead of him, but I have to be honest that he hasn’t lived up to even the most meager of expectations to date.

Royce Parham: B+

And this is where my personal biases probably shine brightest. I thought Parham would be a deep bench, spot minute in blowouts type player. And that prediction has proven to be an F-.

Parham not only has been able to contribute immediately, he’s 6th on the team in minutes played with 160, averaging 14.5 a game. More importantly, he’s been quite good in that time on the court.

Yes, he’s a little too trigger happy, trailing only Kam in field goal attempts per 40 minutes. Yes, he’s been downright bad from distance, hitting only 23% of his 39 threes. Yes, he looks lost at times. But for a true freshman to show he’s a net positive on the court is extremely rare. And don’t get me wrong, he is a very large net positive.

This isn’t to say he should be playing more minutes than others below him, just that, in the time he has been given, despite the shortcomings, Marquette has been a net positive with him on the floor.

This last thing is purely feel, but I liked having Parham follow Zaide and Tre because their offensive mentality is starkly different. Parham is unfazed by results and ultra aggressive. Shaka will need to help him be more selective, sure, but that scorer’s mentality something you really can’t teach. This nonconference season has been a constant slap in my face as a potential evaluator of high school talent, and I couldn’t be any happier.

Caedin Hamilton: C

Caedin has the fewest minutes of any scholarship player, which in and of itself is not a knock on a redshirt freshman, but based on the fact I thought he could slot in as the primary backup big, I think a C grade is appropriate.

He has shown flashes of the passing that had the coaching staff raving in the offseason, and he has the only real back to the basket game of any Marquette player on the roster, so it’s a great change of pace skill. But when he’s out there, it does feel like the game is still a bit sped up for him, which is perfectly normal for a first season of high D1 action.

Another positive note, he has the 2nd highest assist rate on the team (with limited minutes played as the caveat). You can see how Marquette wants to use him offensively, and the hope is with more reps and experience, his vision and skill for passing will begin to show more and more often.

Damarius Owens: B-

This is a homer grade, no doubt about it. A primary ball handler with a 25% turnover rate and 7% assist rate would be considered nothing short of disastrous. But even as the handle is loose and the legs are slip sliding, Damarius Owens has shown absolutely no fear for any moment he has faced.

And considering he’s only participated in about 1/4 of all practices, per Shaka’s comments, it makes it even more remarkable that he’s done enough to gain the staff’s trust and commonly be one of, if not the, first off the bench.

Forget the stats and small samples. I had lofty expectations for Owens and even in limited spots and with varying results, the foundation for a generational player is clear as day with him.

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