Now that we are 9 games into the 2011-12 season, we can take a look at how this Marquette team is trending from a statistical point of view. Now, this is isn't going to be a in depth hardcore KenPom style stat analysis of the team. First, I'm only smart enough to read the stats and second, Paint Touches already beat me to that. So instead, we're going to identify the Golden Eagles who are making a name for themselves in the Marquette history books while the team is having one of their better seasons in recent history. A hat tip in advance to the MU Scoop Wiki for keeping track of these historical numbers for all of us.
We'll start with the two seniors and their track on the all time scoring list. Last year, Darius Johnson-Odom became the 43rd player in Marquette history to record 1,000 points in a career. With what he's accomplished so far this season, he's moved all the way up to 29th all time with 1,235 points, 1 point in front of Anthony Pieper, Doc Rivers and Earl Tatum. DJO sits 43 points behind Jim McIlvaine's 1,278 points in 28th place. DJO's current pace of 18.8 points/game puts him on track for another 432 points in the 23 games that Marquette has guaranteed on the schedule (22 regular season and 1 Big East Tournament game). 432 more points would push his career total to 1,867, which would slot DJO 2nd all time between Jerel McNeal's 1,985 and Lazar Hayward's 1,859. So we have to ask the question: What would a couple of 25 point explosions combined with deep runs in the Big East and NCAA tournaments do for DJO? We'll have to keep our eyes on this.
Given that DJO is only going to play for 3 seasons for Marquette, it's also worth noting that this puts him on pace to fly past George Thompson's 1,773 points, which Brute Force recorded when freshmen were not eligible to compete.
Moving to Jae Crowder, he currently sits at 602 career points. Obviously, he's not going to be challenging the top of the list like DJO will. But the Absolut Weapon's 17.4 ppg puts him on pace for another 400 points this year, which would make him the 44th player with 1,000 career points, tipping just over the mark at 1,002 points in just 2 seasons in Division 1.
All right, make like Van Halen and JUMP for a look at what Golden Eagles are on track to challenge the top 10 single season marks!
As you can probably guess, Darius Johnson-Odom is making a charge at the top 10 single season points list. His current 169 points combined with his projected 432 points as mentioned earlier put him on target to slip into 9th place with 601 points, behind the 616 points put up by Dean Meminger in 1970-71 and Lazar Hayward in 2009-10. Jae Crowder has 157 points so far this season, so his projected 400 points would put him at 557, just 27 points shy of 10th place, currently held by Travis Diener with 584 points in 2003-04.
Moving on to the single season assists leaders, Junior Cadougan has 50 assists on the season, giving him an average of 6.25 per game in the 8 games that he's played in. If he can maintain that pace, Cadougan can get to 193 assists for the season. 193 assists would be better than all but 6 seasons in Marquette history, slotting in between Sam Worthen's 209 assists in 1978-79 and the 187 assists that Travis Diener posted in 2003-04.
We'll look at one more stat before we wrap up here. Vander Blue has recorded 20 steals so far this season, averaging 2.22 per contest. Sounds really good, right? That puts him on track for 71 steals this season, which would tie for the 8th best season in program history. Who would Vander be sharing 8th place with, you ask? Well, it'd be Dwyane Wade on the way to the Final Four in 2002-03 and Jerel McNeal's senior season in 2008-09. No big deal.
We'll keep tabs on where these numbers are trending going forward and keep you up to date on the historic accomplishments of the 2011-12 Golden Eagles!