Marquette Has Shown Interest In Utah State Transfer Koby McEwen

Just because the NCAA tournament isn’t officially over doesn’t mean it’s not transfer season. On Saturday, before the Final Four games tipped off, we got a Marquette related note from ESPN’s Jeff Goodman. According to Goodman, Utah State transfer guard Koby McEwen has picked up interest from YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles.

McEwen is listed at 6’4” and 200 pounds in his official Utah State bio, and is departing USU due to a coaching change. As a freshman, he averaged 14 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists while shooting 42% from three-point range. That earned him Mountain West Freshman of the Year honors. He followed that up with a 16/5/3 season, but his three-point shooting took a dip in 2017-18, down to just 33% on nearly 70 more attempts than the year before, and just 32% against Division 1 opponents.

In terms of advanced metrics, McEwen has posted a top 400 Assist Rate according to KenPom in both of his two seasons at Utah State, which is the key for what Marquette is looking for in a transferring player right now. In addition to that, McEwen has been in the top 250 in the country in terms of fouls drawn in both seasons, and top 500 in free throw rate in both seasons, maxing that out to #71 in the country as a freshman. In short, he knows how to distribute the ball at a high level and he can get to the rack and draw shooting fouls at a high level. The only player on Marquette’s 2017-18 roster who has similar stats as McEwen in those departments is Andrew Rowsey, and he heavily depended on pumpfaking defenders into the air on three-point attempts to get to the line.

As a traditional transfer, McEwen will have to sit out the 2018-19 season, but he will have two seasons of eligibility after that. Marquette currently has two scholarships available for the fall of 2018, and they have already expressed interest to Pitt transfer Marcus Carr. Depending on how you feel about Twitter follows, Marquette’s staff may also be in close contact with Fordham graduate transfer Joseph Chartouny.

Here’s the scholarship table for Marquette, starting with the 2018-19 season and going forward.