Losing your first big test sucks.
Getting blown out by 23 points in said first big test really sucks.
Getting blown out by 23 in your first big test in a way that makes your strengths look like weaknesses is panic inducing.
At least that was my reaction in real time. So I waited a few days to let the initial emotion run its course and rational thought come back in, and this is what I’m left with. Unlike the last 2 years, we have no real idea of what this Marquette team is. There are so many new faces, new roles, new projects that we have had to rely on the offseason reports and short scrimmage videos to inform our projections.
What Sunday’s loss against Indiana showed was a team that looked every bit as young as we knew it was (youngest in the Big East) without any of the benefits of the experience it brought back. And that stings when your ethos, and the thing setting MU apart from the rest of the country, is that you don’t have to bring in transfers because you trust your players and believe they have grown enough in the offseason to step into those new roles. And that didn’t happen. Yet, at least.
Again, there will be lots of teams that have early ugly, losses. What sets this one apart is that we have no further context from the recent past to say this was just a blip. So without being able to rely on those precedents, this one game sample becomes representative of everything we feared could happen. We may look back on this game in 2 months and laugh at how crazy the rotations were and how much this ass-kicking was a catalyst for the rest of the season. Or we might point at it as the moment we knew the project was flawed and this team would disappoint. We simply don’t know yet what the big picture narrative will be.
But I do think a quick dive into the history books is worthwhile here to make the point.
Past Beatdowns
I did a little dive into the history books to find some more early season 16+ point losses Marquette has suffered. There were more than I remembered, TBH, with 8 separate drubbings since 2012. Of those 8, not counting this season, 6 have ended up making the NCAA Tournament (with a COVID canceled asterisk on 2020).
Some quick takeaways on the chart:
- This used to basically be a yearly thing until Shaka got here. No wonder it stung so much
- Marquette lost by the exact margin to the exact opponent in the 2019 season, that’s pretty remarkable
- That Vanderbilt loss was the worst home game I ever went to in my time as a student. That score doesn’t do it justice.
- One last time, we won’t know what the final takeaway from the loss will be for a few months. Grand claims in either direction are foolish
Turnovers
Unless your grand claim revolves around turnovers. Then I’m with you.
This Marquette defense is made to be chaotic for the other team. Waves of athletes that will play you closely and make life incredibly uncomfortable. It thrives off generating turnovers, and then uses that to create easy scores.
Against Indiana, Marquette only forced 8 turnovers and combined with the 76 possessions, that led to the 4th worst forced TO rating under Shaka.
But as if that wasn’t bad enough, 2 of those TOs came in the last 4 minutes with the white flag waved. Which means Marquette only forced 6 in around 72 possessions, an 8.3% turnover rate that would be he worst in Shaka’s tenure. Again, weird stuff happens, and Indiana handled Marquette’s pressure with aplomb, but what it tells us, is that this defense isn’t good enough to win without forcing some havoc. It won’t be THAT bad all season (I hope) but even if it improves, Marquette can’t be successful if it is turning the ball over more than its opponents.
I don’t need a larger sample to tell you that because we have 4+ years of Shaka teams to bear that out.
Nigel James
Nigel’s stat lines haven’t been gaudy. He hasn’t been talked about at all nationally, or even in Big East circles. But Marquette fans have a special player on their hands in Nigel. He was one of the lone bright spots vs Indiana, and the team was night and day different when he was on the floor.
Limited minutes in 3 games is way too soon to be this bought in to a true freshman, but the way he moves is just different. He attacks the rim with such confidence. He has some of the fastest hands I’ve ever seen. And he isn’t afraid of the moment. At all.
I expect we will be seeing his minutes continue to tick up past 20 come conference play.
Shooting Splits
The 3-point shooting has left plenty to be desired for Marquette early on, and even though I think it will improve, I don’t think this is going to be a top-tier team from distance. It doesn’t have enough shooters.
So that makes the type of 3s this team takes imperative. Per Synergy, MU is shooting 44.7% on unguarded spotup 3s, and only 12.9% on guarded ones. While it makes perfect sense teams will be better at open shots than unopen shots, this disparity is almost unheard of. In fact, MU is the worst team in the country (through 8 days) at hitting guarded spot ups.
We saw Marquette adjust in its buy games to attack the rim more than just settling, which is great to see. And while we will see those numbers stabilize with a larger sample, the fact there are no snipers means it (probably) won’t ever be a strength. Add in the ugly dribble jumper numbers and key for the offense will be to limit the tough looks. Easier said than done.
Rotations
One more thing, if it feels like you have no idea who is on the floor for MU at any given point, you are not alone, and you are not mistaken. In Shaka’s tenure we’ve never seen so many different non-walkon rotations through 3 games.
And it’s not just the number, it’s the consistency, or lack thereof. Here are the number of possessions the most used lineup has been on the floor for, through the first 3 games in Shaka’s tenure.
These early season contests are the time where the circle of trust is built and we see the preferred pairings, but as of the first week, it seems like Shaka still doesn’t know who to trust (and said as much after the Southern game). And this matters because even if you have a wider rotation with more and more frequent substitutions, you need to build rapport with the players around you to be able to navigate off ball (and on ball) screens, something Marquette did quite poorly.
I’ll be very curious to see what these comparisons look like come next Monday.
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