2012-13 Player Review: #12 Derrick Wilson

With the 2012-13 season now in the books, we take a moment to look back at the performance that each member of YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles turned in this year. While we're at it, we'll also take a look back at our player previews and see how our preseason prognostications stack up with how things actually played out. We'll run through the roster in order of total minutes played (lowest to highest). The series continues today with backup point guard Derrick Wilson.

What We Said:

Minimum Expectations: The departure of TJ Taylor means that there isn't really a player coming in that threatens to knock Derrick out of his role as the back-up to Junior Cadougan. Though that still doesn't mean a ton of minutes for Derrick, I expect to see him continue to progress. Hopefully, he can rein in the ticky-tack fouls that will allow him to stay on the floor longer, and be more effective as a defender. I also expect to see some improvement offensively. Now I don't think he's going to get out there and suddenly be the second coming of DJO, but I do expect to see steps in the right direction - and hitting free throws would be a good place to start.

Wildest Dream: The wildest dream is that Derrick takes all of those steps I mentioned above, and then about 3 more beyond there. In this scenario, he becomes a true lockdown defender AND develops enough of an offensive game to allow Buzz to keep him out there in big situations. He uses that running back like body to attack the paint and set up easy looks for his mates - and, of course, lays a couple in for himself. Then this would allow the staff to feel comfortable Junior Cadougan when he needs a blow, or when the Monstars steal his talent like occasionally happened last season.

Worst Nightmare: The worst nightmare for Derrick is pretty much the same as it is for any second-year player coming in without a clearly defined role on the team. My fear is that he takes none of the steps and remains the same player he had been last year. This causes the coaching staff to lose confidence in him, his minutes dwindle to nothing, and next season he is looking to play somewhere closer to home (which for him would be in like British Columbia or something).

I am probably not the right person to pen this review, because, when it comes to Derrick Wilson, I've almost completely lost the ability to be anything approaching objective about his value to Marquette.

I don't think you'll get much argument that Derrick Wilson is beyond bankrupt - like, if somebody who was already bankrupt somehow opened 15 more credit card accounts, maxed those out, and then filed for bankruptcy again - on offense. His season high in points was six, set in 22 minutes against Florida when Junior Cadougan caught a particularly virulent strain of Road Junior Blues and Wilson stepped into the breach. He tallied all of 11 points (total) in Big East conference play. He didn't make a single basket or free throw in the post-season. He shot 27% from the field (eep), 12.5% from three (oof), and 45% from the line (blech). And come season's end, it was no exaggeration to say that Marquette was playing 4-on-5 on offense when Wilson was at the helm; he'd stopped looking for his shot entirely, and he'd largely abandoned trying to create for his teammates, opting to stand near the mid-court stripe and swing the ball around the perimeter.

Where you'll find some disagreement about Derrick Wilson is on the defensive side of the court. Some people insist that Wilson was easily the team's best defender in 2012-'13, and that defense, coupled with his very low turnover numbers, made him a more than serviceable player. Other people (OH HAI IT'S ME) will claim that Wilson's contributions on defense are overrated and overstated, as they (1) primarily came against backups and (2) were made in such a small sample size (just 13 minutes per game) that it's very difficult to assign them significance. Plus, those same people (STILL HAI STILL ME) will tell you: if you're going to be as stink-out-loud bad as Wilson is on offense, you better be freaking transcendent defensively, like a junior Gary Payton in his prime or something. And even if you think Derrick was very good defensively in 2012-'13, he wasn't that level of good.

And at this point you'd probably be wise to note that you and I are probably not going to agree on this and it'd be better if we just moved on to Derrick's best game.

Best Game: There were a number of times when Wilson had to stand in for Cadougan when the senior got a bad case of road jitters, but Derrick's best turn came when Junior was out for another reason: after an early-game collision knocked Cadougan out of the roadie at Pitt, Wilson was pressed into service in the second half and overtime. The box score wasn't a thing of beauty - 1 point, 2 assists, 2 boards, no steals, no blocks - but Wilson took care of the rock (one turnover) in a hostile environment and Marquette escaped with a victory that set the tone for the rest of the year.

Season Grade (1-Worst Nightmare to 10-Wildest Dreams): Sorry, folks: it's my review, and I can't be talked into anything higher than a 3. He was halfway home on the disaster scenario - didn't improve at all offensively from his freshman year, arguably took a step or two back in his second season - and while he was very good in the one area you need your point guard to be very good (not turning the ball over), that flowed from the fact that he didn't, y'know, do very much with the ball. Unless there's a totally unexpected leap next year, Derrick's ceiling is a 15-minute-a-game backup point guard.