Marquette Basketball: Duane Wilson Really Needs To Stop It With The Three Pointers

Duane Wilson shot 55% from three point range in his senior year of high school.

We're going to start this with facts, and facts only.  He was outstanding from long range in his final prep season, and deserved all the accolades that he received as a result.

After a year off spent rehabbing a stress fracture, Duane Wilson assembled one of the best freshman campaigns that Marquette basketball has ever seen.  That includes shooting 35.5% from beyond the arc, and that bumped up to 36.7% in conference play.  According to KenPom, against top 100 opponents, Wilson buried triples at a rate of 41.1%, and in MU's 12 games against top 50 opponents, Wilson canned 48% of his long balls.  He followed that up with a 9-18 performance from deep in Marquette's four games on their European trip in August.

So I think it's safe to say that Marquette fans were anticipating getting to see Wilson freed up by the influx of talent in the freshman class and thus, in theory, getting to shoot an few extra wide open jumpers and boost that shooting percentage and scoring output a little bit.

That hasn't happened.  Not even close.

I don't know what's wrong with him, but something is clearly way off.  I don't know if he's rushing because Steve Wojciechowski wants the team playing faster, I don't know if he feels he needs to be the guiding force for the team as the only guy who's been a key component for a full season before, I don't know if he's forcing things to make sure everyone else on the team knows that he's the guy in charge around here.

All I know is that we've gone way past struggling and into flat out bad, as he's now shooting just 22.2% on three point attempts.  To give you some context on that, Jajuan "I missed 15 straight threes to open Big East play in 2014-15" Johnson finished the season shooting 21.9%.

I think the LSU line is the one that actually bothers me the most, as that would be the first game after Wojo confiscated the practice gear and took everyone to an outdoor court in Brooklyn for practice and then yanked Wilson from the starting lineup.  Wilson's response?  Just keep chucking.  Yes, 2-5 in the first half is 40%, which is great.  It's not great when you came in 4-22, and when you end up 3-9, you kind of took the edge off of it.

The Jackson State line is also not encouraging, because Marquette spent most of that second half waaaaaay up and there really wasn't a reason for Wilson to need to shoot five three-pointers.

Anyway, that's just the three point shooting stats broken down by half, and I think we were all pretty much aware that they were terrible.  Here's why every single three pointer that Duane Wilson puts up should drive you completely insane.

Back to facts for a moment.  Duane Wilson is shooting 62.5% - SIXTY-TWO POINT FIVE PERCENT - inside the arc, including two games where he missed just one shot each, and surprise, those happen to be Marquette's biggest wins of the season.  That 62.5% mark is good enough for #224 in the country, according to KenPom.

I don't have shooting charts for you, so I can't tell you where exactly Wilson's getting his two point shots off on a regular basis.  This is just my memory speaking, but I don't remember him shooting a lot of Junior Cadougan-esque 15 foot pull ups.  When he puts the ball on the floor and gets to the rim, it's going in.  A LOT.  The only person on the team shooting better than Wilson inside the arc is Luke Fischer at 66%.

That's what makes his three point obsession so maddening.  Wilson can contribute a lot to this team because he can do a lot more than just shoot.  But until he stops shooting so many threes at such an atrocious rate, all we're going to talk about is the shooting.