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In his two seasons for North Carolina-Asheville, Andrew Rowsey averaged 20.3 points and 19.2 points per game. He played over 32 minutes a game each year, averaged more than 2.5 rebounds, and racked up 2.9 assists per game in both seasons.
Andrew Rowsey is not coming anywhere near those numbers for Marquette.
He’s averaging 7.9 points, 1.5 rebounds, and 1.0 assists in 15.4 minutes per game.
This could seem like he’s not doing well. That’s hardly the case.
The fact of the matter is that Rowsey was not going to be The Guy for Marquette like he was for the Bulldogs in 2014 and 2015. With guys like Luke Fischer, Haanif Cheatham, and Jajuan Johnson on the roster, there’s no need for Rowsey to dominate the ball like he did for UNCA.
The good news is that his fancy stats are, largely speaking, much improved from his time in North Carolina. Rowsey is currently performing with career bests in Offensive Rating (121.8), effective field goal percentage (56.7%), true shooting percentage (63.7%), offensive rebounding rate (2.4%), and turnover rate (13.5%).
If you prefer things in a more traditional statistical sense, Rowsey is also shooting his career best in both free throws (95.2%) and three-pointers (41.7%).
Perhaps most impressively, he’s doing all of this while posting the lowest usage rate of his career and the lowest percentage of team shots of his career as well.
With the departure of Traci Carter, Rowsey is going to be called on to do a little bit more for Marquette for the rest of his time in Milwaukee. In the two games that Carter missed with knee soreness, Rowsey posted offensive ratings of over 130, played more than 15 minutes in both games, and averaged 12.5 points to go along with 1.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists. He also went 5-for-7 (71%) from behind the three point line, which, if we’re being honest, is not going to continue. But it is fun to say “hey, as long as he performs half as well the rest of the season.”
We’re not getting the UNCA scoring machine Andrew Rowsey. That’s fine. I didn’t expect to get that version. We are getting a very good version, though, and that’s going to work out just fine.