2011-12 Player Review: #5 Junior Cadougan

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 continue our climb up the list of minutes played this year by moving on to junior guard Junior Cadougan.

Hit the jump!

What We Said:

Minimum Expectations:
Junior builds off of last season, going from solid back-up PG to a dependable starter, giving the team 25-30 minutes a game. We'll hopefully see some additional offense from him, too, if for no other reason than to keep the opposition's defense honest.

In My Wildest Dreams:
Not only do we see the transition to starting PG work seamlessly, but we see a floor leader emerge. If Cadougan is able to create enough scoring opportunities for his teammates, I expect a significant improvement on his 2-to-1 assist to turnover ratio from last season (which was good for 125th in country). If he improves in that area, and maintains his tenacious defense, he'll never see the bench.

In My Worst Nightmare:
Cadougan feels pressure from freshman PG Derrick Wilson and can't handle the rigors of being the coach on the floor, and falls back into the same pattern of inconsistency that marked his sophomore year.

I know a lot of people are not the biggest fans of Junior Cadougan. I know that some people are fond of the nickname The Toronto Turnover Machine.

But his assist-to-turnover ratio was exactly where it was last year (2.0, ranked 124th in the country), and his assist percentage (% of MU baskets scored while he was on the floor that he assisted on) was up from last year, going from 27.34% and ranked 153rd in the nation to 32.38% and 60th in the country. The only reason that Junior's turnovers increased was because he actually was the starting point guard from day one. Here he is, third from the end on our player reviews list which we based on total minutes played. For next year's player previews, which will be based on average minutes played like this year's was, Junior's going to be last, because no one returning averaged more than him. Outside of the two seniors, no player had a bigger impact on Marquette's success this year than Junior.

As I mentioned yesterday with Vander Blue, this year we got to see The Patented Junior Cadougan Pull Up 15 Footer. Any time we get a new patented offensive shot from a (let's admit it) unlikely source, we have reason to be excited about the development of a player. On top of all of this, we actually got to the point where we were completely comfortable with Cadougan firing away in catch-and-shoot scenarios. Vander may have been the most improved this past season, but Junior is the player that I'm most interested in seeing how he develops for next season.

Best Game: I think it's Pitt. 35 minutes, 6 points, 9 assists, 4 rebounds, 3 steals in a game where Marquette needed everyone to come to play while Ashton Gibbs went CRAZY.

Season Grade (1 is Worst Nightmare, 5 is Minimum Expectation, and 10 is Wildest Dream): I give Junior an 8. He didn't improve the A/T ratio, but he did everything else in that Wildest Dream write up.