Marquette Basketball Four Factors: vs DePaul

If you're not familiar with the Four Factors as featured on KenPom.com, the concept is very simple: There are four main parts of a basketball game that contribute to a team's success. They are:

• effective field goal percentage, or FG% with a bonus for made three pointers
  
• turnover rate, or the % of possessions that end in a turnover
  
• offensive rebound rate, or the % of possible offensive rebounds that the team grabbed
  
• and free throw rate, or the ratio of free throws attempted to field goals attempted expressed as a percentage

We'll look at the numbers for Marquette and their opponent in both categories for each game. The opponent number doubles as Marquette's defensive numbers, since it's what they're allowing. Along side each of the individual game numbers, you'll see two numbers after that.  The first is Marquette's season long average in that category, and the second is their national ranking on KenPom.com.

Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%)

Marquette: 37.5% (Season: 49.3%, #158)
DePaul: 35.2% (Season: 48.7%, #159)

YAY DEFENSE!  Just don't look at the offense.  While Rashaun Stimage (4-5) and R.J. Curington (4-8) had nice shooting days, the main focus of the Blue Demon offense was terrible.  Marquette coaxed Myke Henry into a 5-17 day, Jamee Crockett went 6-16, and Billy Garrett was a nasty 1-9.  They were a combined 6-20 in the first half while Marquette built a 12 point lead that took one of those six makes to drop to just nine points at the break.

Marquette was also not great.  Duane Wilson missed all six of his shots, Derrick Wilson missed both of his, and Matt Carlino was a 6-17 that only looks slightly better when you know he went 5-14 behind the arc.  Even Luke Fischer's 5-11 only gets raised to "acceptable" when you compare it to what everyone else did.

Turnover Rate (TO%)

Marquette: 17.9% (Season: 18.8%, #154)
DePaul: 18.8% (Season: 21.3%, #50)

Hey, this went pretty well.  Marquette's had some struggles with maintaining possession since Luke Fischer entered the lineup, which can likely just be associated with getting used to throwing the big man passes in real game situations.  Here, though, the Golden Eagles were slightly better than their season average, so that's okay by me.  Duane Wilson's bad day continued in this department, as he and Steve Taylor, Jr., tied for the team lead in turnovers with three each.

DePaul committed 12 turnovers.  One of them is officially credited as a "team" turnover, but the remaining eleven were all committed by either Myke Henry, Jamee Crockett, Billy Garrett, or Durrell McDonald.  Everyone in that group had three except for Crockett, who had two.  Not surprisingly, these guys had the four highest minute totals for DePaul in this game.

Offensive Rebounding Rate (OR%)

Marquette: 35.9% (Season: 28.8%, #257)
DePaul: 33.3% (Season: 36.9%, #343)

WOO REBOUNDING FOR TWO GAMES IN A ROW!

And yet again, it was Steve Taylor, Jr., who did the damage for the Golden Eagles.  The junior forward had 12 total rebounds, grabbing four on the offensive end.  Luke Fischer actually bettered Taylor on the offensive end, grabbing a game high six on the offensive glass en route to nine total rebounds.

Now, while Marquette's effort on their own misses was great, and their effort on DePaul's misses was better than it has been, it still wasn't good.  Holding your opponents to a 33.3% OR% still only ranks you #275 in the country.  Again, we're going to be excited about this because it was MUCH better than the season long average that has MU ranked in the bottom 10 in the country, but this is still an area that must get MUCH better next season.

Free Throw Rate (FTR)

Marquette: 50.0% (Season: 35.8%, #214)
DePaul: 9.4% (Season: 30.8%, #46)

Ok, forget these numbers, because they're almost ridiculous, and thumbs up to Marquette for getting both of them in that direction.

Let's talk about Derrick Wilson.  The senior guard came into the game shooting 41% on free throws this season, draining a woeful 22 of his 54 attempts.  He shot five free throws in the final 2:42 of this game.  He missed the first, leaving Marquette's lead at 11.  He then hit his next four, first pushing Marquette's lead from 12 to 14 and then from 13 to 15.  I don't know if DePaul was honestly trying to foul Derrick because they knew that he was a lousy FT shooter and they had a chance to make a silly comeback if they fouled him.  Either way, he had the opportunity to erase all chance of DePaul winning the game, and here, in his final home game, he came up with four monster free throw makes.  Congrats to you, Mr. Wilson.