The Markus Howard History Watch: at #15 Villanova

We’re accustomed to Markus Howard doing all sorts of historic things on the basketball court for Marquette men’s basketball at this point. It’s kind of his thing. However, there’s a few records and/or milestones that are in his shooting range for Wednesday night’s game against #15 Villanova at Finneran Pavilion. As such, it only made sense to compile them all into a list for you to have as reference as you watch the game on FS1 tonight.

Let’s dive in, and uh, well, the first one is a big one. Possibly the biggest possible one.

• The Big East men’s basketball scoring record. Howard currently has 1,384 career points in Big East regular season games. That places him third behind Boston College’s Troy Bell and Syracuse’s Lawrence Moten. Howard needs five points to pass Bell and 22 points to pass Moten. Howard averages 27.4 points per game this season and 28.5 per game in Big East games.
• The Marquette career made free throws record. Howard is sitting on 548 made free throws in his career. He is just the second Marquette player to ever connect 500 times from the charity stripe, and the first was Wesley Matthews..... who had 549 in his career. Howard’s next freebie will tie Matthews, and the one after that will break the MU program record.
• The Marquette single season made three-pointers top 10. Howard is already tied with Steve Novak’s sophomore and junior seasons for the seventh most threes in any Marquette season. He needs two to pass Travis Diener’s junior year for sixth and six to pass Sam Hauser’s sophomore year for fifth. His next three-pointer will make him the first Marquette player to record 90 threes in a season three times...... and he’s already the first player to do it twice.
• The Marquette senior year made three-pointers top 10. This one is really a minor note to the previous one. Howard is in third place here behind Steve Novak (121) and Andrew Rowsey (125) and at 89, he can’t catch either of them in this game. However, Howard’s next made triple will make him the third Marquette player to record 90 threes in their senior season.
• The Marquette single season scoring top 10. Howard currently has 603 points this season. He needs 21 points to pass Darius Johnson-Odom’s senior year for the 10th most points in a season by a Marquette player. 26 would put him past Butch Lee’s junior year and into 9th place. 39 points — and how crazy is it that I can type this out and y’all are nodding and saying “yup, possible” — would pass Wesley Matthews’ senior year for 8th place.
• The Marquette single season made free throws top 10. Howard currently has 160 free throws this season, which ties him with George Thompson’s junior year for the 11th most in any MU season. He needs 14 to pass Tony Smith’s senior year and move into the top 10.
• The Marquette senior year made free throws chart. Howard has 160 free throws this season, as mentioned a moment ago. That’s the 7th most by a MU player in his senior season, and he’s again chasing Tony Smith here for sixth place and will need 14 to pass him.
• The Marquette senior year scoring top 10. I actually haven’t generated an article for this one yet, but the Google Sheet to track Howard exists already. He’s currently sitting in ninth place with 603 points this year. He needs 12 points to pass Jae Crowder for eighth, 14 to pass Dean Meminger and Lazar Hayward for sixth, 21 to pass DJO for fifth, and yes, 39 to pass Wesley Matthews for fourth.