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With the season wrapped up, it's time to provide the bookend for the Player Previews we wrote to start the season. We'll take a look back at what we thought about each of the Marquette players back in November and see if we did a good job of prognostication. We'll go through the roster in the order of total minutes played, which means we start with freshman Juan Anderson.
Hit the jump!
Minimum Expectations: A player who will see five minutes of playing time per game, giving vets like Jae and Jamil a minute to catch their breath before re-entering the game.
In My Wildest Dreams: Juan goes from getting five minutes a game to earning nearly 15 minutes per contest come Big East conference play, staking out a spot in the rotation and never letting it go. And, to make matters better: there's very little drop off when Juan hits the floor, no matter who he is replacing.
In My Worst Nightmare: He follows in the footsteps of Erik Williams, Dameon Mason, Scott Christopherson, Carlton Christian, Damian Saunders and the list goes on ...
It looks like our minimum expectations were exactly on target. Anderson played in 24 of Marquette's 35 games this season, but it's actually 24 of 31 games that he was available for. He missed the first three games of the season because of an NCAA suspension for accepting a ticket to a Brewers playoff game and missed another game when he suffered a shoulder injury in practice. Considering that he fell behind the curve after spending some preseason time in a boot with a foot injury instead of practicing, playing in more than 75% of Marquette's games isn't that bad.
We thought we were seeing the start of something great from Anderson when he snagged five rebounds in just 7 minutes of play against Wisconsin back in December in what was just his third appearance of the season. But it would take 8 appearances across six weeks for Juan to match those 5 rebounds as he ended up playing only when Jae Crowder and Jamil Wilson found themselves both in foul trouble. The effort and energy was always there for Anderson, but things never seemed to click for him on the court and his rather slender frame didn't do him any favors on the defensive end.
Best Game: The aforementioned trip to the Kohl Center. Anderson added an assist and two points to those 5 rebounds in what was the most hostile environment that he had played in to that point of the season.
Season Grade (1 is Worst Nightmare, 5 is Minimum Expectation, and 10 is Wildest Dreams): I have to give Juan a 4 here. I like what he can bring to the team, but ultimately, it was only flashes of possibility down the road. He didn't quite average the 5 minutes a game that we mentioned in the preview, and most times he only saw a minute or two of action.