StatWatch: We Play Catch Up From Marquette’s Last Three Games All At Once

For those of you paying close attention, you’ve probably noticed that there hasn’t been a StatWatch for the past three Marquette games. That’s what happens when the games start coming fast and furious around here for both men’s and women’s basketball.

Anyway, we’re going to make it up to you with a quick-ish look at the Four Factors from each of MU’s last three games: vs Georgetown, at Providence, and at Villanova. When something fun and or interesting jumps out, we’ll highlight it along the way.

LET’S GET READY TO FANCY MATH!

Shoutout to Georgetown for literally handing this game to Marquette. The shooting was pretty even and the Hoyas had the advantage on the glass, which kind of tilts the shooting in their favor since they had all those extra chances to shoot. However, the Hoyas committed 14 turnovers in the first half and 11 after the break, and that spelled doom for them on that day. Four of their five starters committed at least four turnovers. Thanks to what is turning into trademark poor ball control from Patrick Ewing’s team, the Golden Eagles easily overcame an off night elsewhere on the floor.

Everyone knows that Markus Howard was a fireball in this game. His personal 78% effective field goal percentage is the big reason why Marquette shot the ball so well in the game, not that you needed me to tell you that. The 46% from everyone else is..... Well, I don’t know. Is everyone else being on the back edge of passable okay when one guy just can not miss for 25 straight minutes? It probably is, when you consider that everyone not named Andrew Rowsey was at 50%. Think about this: Sam Hauser’s dagger was one of just two three-pointers that Marquette made in this game that didn’t come off of Howard’s hands. Again, he was a fireball, and for the love of God, pour gasoline on that fireball. But Marquette could have run away with this game if someone other than Howard was hitting from deep.

Things that will get forgotten from this game: Matt Heldt recording 6&6 with a block, Sam Hauser’s 9/8/4 with two steals, Greg Elliott’s 2/2/4/1/2, which is incredible, given his usage rate of just 8%.

Marquette handed Villanova 16 extra free throws — half of their total for the game — in the final 90 seconds of this game, which ended up leading to a very ugly Free Throw Rate. It also led to Marquette being down five with 43 seconds to play and having a not insane possibility of winning the game (don’t go look at the win probability charts, just go with your heart). Following up the atrocious 75% FTR from the Providence game with a 56% FTR looks kind of bad, but through 38:30, the Free Throw Rate was actually only 28%. That’s really good (it would be top 75 in the country for a season long mark via KenPom), especially against a team as good as the Wildcats.

With that said, Marquette’s defense would probably be a lot better off if they weren’t fouling to the tune of being ranked #285 in the country in FTR, and they’re not that low just because of 16 free throws against Villanova. It’s not the free throws that are causing them problems, it’s that Marquette is kind of lackluster on defense in the first place, and having to take the edge off because you can’t pick up a foul at that point is just making it worse.