Marquette men’s basketball is becoming a prisoner of its own success.
Expectations coming into the season varied for the Golden Eagles, but not many computer models or human brains envisioned them getting out to a 4-3 start with zero wins over high major opponents.
Marquette hadn’t lost consecutive home games since head coach Shaka Smart’s first season, but it reset the trend Wednesday, when it lost to Dayton in overtime, 77-71. The Golden Eagles bounced back on Saturday with a 85-71 win over Central Michigan, but the week remained darkened by the blue & gold’s inability to beat higher-quality opponents.
Here are some thoughts from the week:
The shooting struggles aren’t going away
The good news for Marquette is that its scoring 83.4 points per game, which ranks 116th nationally and would be its top mark under Smart.
The bad news is that the Golden Eagles rank 249th in the country in field goal percentage, shooting just 43.9%. No other Marquette team has shot worse than 44% in a season during Smart’s tenure.
The struggles exist all over the floor.
According to Synergy Sports via a tweet from statistics blog PaintTouches, Marquette ranks 364th out of 365 teams in making guarded spot-up threes (16.7%), while ranking 19th in attempts. And, inside the paint, the Golden Eagles are the 4th worst high major in rim shot efficiency.
“We’d still like to get our (shooting) percentages up,” Smart said. “And I think we will in time.”
The Golden Eagles are getting 13.7 offensive rebounds a game, which has resulted in 24 more shots than their opponents across seven games this season. However, they’ve struggled to capitalize on all those extra possessions.
In their losses this season, Marquette is averaging 17.6 second chance points per game, but they’ve come at the expense of an unimpressive 37.5% shooting percentage. That’s compared to 49.1% that the Golden Eagles are shooting in their four wins — a number they’ve gotten while averaging just 9.2 second chance points.
“We’ve had way too many possessions where we’re just not playing with what I would call, ‘flow,’” Smart said Wednesday night. “We’re tight, we’re hesitant at times, some guys are unsure.”
The hesitation Smart is referencing hit its peak against the Flyers on Wednesday, when Marquette was unable to get a shot off in the final moments of regulation after having 17 seconds to do so. The Golden Eagles then shot 1-for-7 in the extra period of play en route to their six point loss.
Smart talks about Marquette’s big men
Marquette’s starting post players have had their ups-and-downs this season.
Despite having his worst performance of the year against Dayton, shooting 2-of-7 from the field while turning the rock over four times, senior forward Ben Gold has been one of the few positives for the Golden Eagles down low. The Wellington, New Zealand native is averaging a career-high eight boards a game to go along with 9.7 points per contest.
“Ben has rebounded the ball well this year. But as a senior, we need him to assert himself even more,” Smart said.
“We don’t want him shooting, 80, 90% of his shots from three. I mean, he’s a good 3-point shooter, we want him to shoot some, but he can get in the paint more.”
Redshirt sophomore Caedin Hamilton grabbed a season-high six rebounds in the loss to the Flyers, but also committed three turnovers. The 6-foot-9 big man is third on the team in turnovers with 11, and seventh in field goals attempted despite starting in every game this season.
“Caedin, he so wants to do the right thing for his team. He’s grown, he’s improved, but we need more from him,” Smart said.
“He’s so unselfish that sometimes his default is to look to pass, but we need him to go score and be aggressive.”
First-year forward Josh Clark played eight minutes on Saturday, scoring four points and erasing one shot. Despite only playing 50 minutes, the 7-footer has pulled down 20 rebounds this season, the sixth most on the team.
“Clearly, his best basketball is ahead of him,” Smart said on Saturday. “We took him as a long term guy, he did a good job redshirting last year, but this is a whole new world where he can go in the game.”
What’s on tap?
Marquette travels to Chicago to face Oklahoma on Black Friday at Credit Union 1 Arena. Tip-off is scheduled for 1 p.m.
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at matthew.baltz@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.