Big East Roster Analysis: Marquette Golden Eagles
This is not a team-by-team preview series for the Providence Friars’ 10 Big East rivals, though it’s not far off. What it is intended to be is a look at how each of the 10 rosters is put together for the coming season. There are a lot of new faces and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what each piece brings and how it fits together. I’m sure I’ll be wrong often, but I walk away feeling more informed, and I’m hoping you will, too.
Marquette Golden Eagles (see below)
Shaka Smart’s Golden Eagles are the anti-DePaul, not just in terms of on-court success but also because DePaul brought in 11 transfers, and Marquette has enrolled none. Instead Smart will rely on internal development and freshmen to replace Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighadoro, the pick-and-roll core of the last two seasons’ elite offenses. There are plenty of questions with this roster but also enough talent to answer those questions and keep Marquette near the top of the league.
If there were something that Smart might have sought in the Portal, it would probably be a point guard to take some of the pressure off of Kam Jones, who is the odds-on favorite to lead the Big East in scoring. Jones is a lefty with the rare combination of 3-point shooting and elite finishing in a 6-foot-4 package. Considering what this team lost, Jones will likely need to play at All-American levels to prevent a dropoff, and, at least offensively – including in the passing ability he showed in Kolek’s absence last year – he’s fully capable.
The above from Paint Touches, a terrific Marquette blog, shows how Kam Jones is an outlier in that he doesn’t get to the foul line all that much and makes a ton of 3-pointers, and yet he has an exception accuracy at the rim. Below you’ll see how determined he is with shot selection, focusing on shots in the paint or behind the 3-point line.
Jones does all this while maintaining a low turnover rate, something that will be stressed this season, since he’ll the primary ball-handler more often in Kolek’s absence, but he was great in that role when Kolek missed time late last season.
The other guard is Stevie Mitchell, like Jones a senior. Mitchell is a menace defensively, leading the Big East in steal rate during conference play for the second straight season. At 29% on 3-pointers for his career, Mitchell hasn’t developed an outside shot, but, like Jones, he is also a great finisher at his size. I am curious how much of Marquette’s elite finishing last year will be in jeopardy this year with the loss of the elite passing of Kolek and Ighadaro. This will be something to track against the Golden Eagles’ better non-conference opponents (Dayton, Iowa State, etc.). Mitchell is not a natural point guard but will likely be forced into that role at times this season.
The rest of the backcourt carries question marks. Jet-quick Sean Jones was a terrific change of pace at point guard last season and brought defensive intensity at 5-foot-10, but Jones tore his ACL in January, and, according to this Paint Touches post, may be a red-shirt candidate this winter. If he does return, Jones is likely to miss the start of the season. Sophomore Tre Norman, a Boston native who prepped at Worcester Academy, saw his playing time perk up in the second half of conference play with first Jones and then Kolek injured. Norman brings physicality at 6-foot-4 and north of 200 pounds, but we’ll see if he’s refined his game enough to contribute quality minutes – Marquette likely will need him.
In the frontcourt, Chase Ross and David Joplin are the likely starters at forward. Ross has been mostly a complementary piece as an athletic wing whose shooting is suspect. He figures to be the fifth option when he plays with the starters. Like Norman and Zaide Lowery, Ross came to campus being seen as a combo guard/wing, but he has not shown the ability to distribute the ball or shoot consistently, and is a defense-first slasher at this point. Joplin did not make the leap to stardom that some predicted last season. His offensive efficiency ticked down (mostly due to going from 40% to 36% on 3-pointers) and, more surprisingly, his usage tumbled below 20%. Joplin did show more defensive equity than expected, particularly with a top-10 finish in blocked-shot rate in league play. Playing more with Kolek, Jones and Ighadaro, Joplin became the fourth option, but he probably needs to be the No. 2 guy this season to take some pressure off Jones.
Lowery and freshman Damarius Owens should earn substantial playing time at forward as well. Lowery was mostly anonymous as a freshman, but, in light of Marquette’s aforementioned injuries last season, he carved out a defensive role. Owens is a top-75 national recruit who, like fellow MU freshman Royce Parham, played on an excellent Western Reserve prep team last year in Cleveland. Owens is a big wing with superb ball skills and vision who should see playing time immediately.
Junior Ben Gold figures to start at center. At 6-foot-11, he hit 36% of his threes on 116 attempts last season, and he is decent at protecting the rim. The big question with him is rebounding. Igahdaro was also not a superb rebounder, but now Oso is gone, and Joplin is mediocre on the glass for a four. Marquette was outside the top-250 in rebounding on both ends last season, and that figures to be a major weakness again. The aforementioned Parham is a stretch four who may have to play some five this season – he was a borderline top-100 recruit who is unlikely to remedy the rebounding problem.
The theme of this roster has to be development: Jones must develop into the consummate scorer and distributor; someone from the trio of Norman, Ross and Lowery will have to take a step forward offensively; Gold, Parham and/or Joplin need to contribute on the glass; Owens may need to pop early.
There’s also the question of the offense — Smart worked with Nevada Smith to transform his system to remarkable effect. The last two seasons, Marquette had back-to-back, top-25 offenses — a Smart-coached team hadn’t done that in any season since 2012-13. I have no doubts that Smart made real, lasting changes to his system, but I am curious to see how this offense works without Kolek, a generational pick-and-roll ball-handler at the college level, and Ighodaro, a big man with nearly incomparable feel and vision. I think it could work with Jones and shooters/cutters around him, but it seems inevitable that the offense is worse. How much worse will determine how high or low the Eagles fly.
It’s not hard to imagine many of these actions working with Jones as the ball-handler instead of Kolek, but does it work as well without Jones providing spacing?
When I zoom out, I see a Marquette roster with serious talent and five junior or senior starters, but if the Golden Eagles end up a shooter or a rebounder short, it may struggle to be more than a mid-seeded at-large team. There’s no shame in that, but it’s a bit below the lofty standard Smart has established these last two seasons.