Field Of 68’s Jeff Goodman says the Golden Eagles are on a short list for Derin Saran.
One of the things you’ve heard over and over again over the past two men’s college basketball seasons while Marquette has put together a record of 56-17 is some variation of “Head coach Shaka Smart is winning without using the transfer portal.” And that’s true! Marquette hasn’t added a rotation player in either of the last two off-seasons, bringing in NAIA Player of the Year Zach Wrightsil in 2022 only to see him miss most of the year with an injury and no one at all last year.
I like to believe that none of us are naive enough to believe that Smart and his staff aren’t out there making inquiries about potential additions. It would be irresponsible of them to not at least look around and see if anyone’s interested in joining the Golden Eagles for the role that the coaches see available to them. With that said, it’s been rare — it didn’t happen at all last year — to see any interest progress to the point of a national reporter connecting Marquette to a potential transfer.
That’s what happened on Thursday evening, when Field of 68’s Jeff Goodman said that UC Irvine transfer guard Derin Saran had Marquette on his short list, along with Stanford, Cal, Northwestern, and Georgia. Saran just took a visit to Stanford last week, which seems to be the impetus for Goodman’s tweet.
UC Irvine transfer Derin Saran took a visit to Stanford last week, and the other programs on his short list include Cal, Northwestern, Georgia, and Marquette, source told @thefieldof68.
The freshman guard averaged 10.1 points and 3.4 rebounds in 19 minutes of play this past…
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) April 25, 2024
Derin Saran was listed at 6’4” and 190 pounds for his freshman year at UC Irvine this past season. He averaged 10.1 points, 3.4 rebounds, 1.6 assists, and just under a steal per game. Hailing from Istanbul in Turkey and ending up with the Anteaters after spending time at a prep school in North Carolina, Saran averaged just over 19 minutes per game and came off the bench in every contest as UC Irvine went 24-10, won the Big West by two games, but earned a spot in the NIT after losing in the conference tournament semifinals and wrapped up their year with a road loss to Utah.
Should we dive a little deeper? Sure, why not, that’s why we’re here. Saran shot just over 50% from the field, 54% on two-pointers, 35% on threes on 1.4 attempts per game, and 80% from the free throw line. KenPom.com lists him as the highest usage player on the roster, which makes sense since he finished the year second on the team in two-point attempts even though he played more than 20 minutes just nine times and never more than 24 minutes. Saran was a sneaky good offensive rebounder, slipping inside KenPom’s top 500 in the country in rate, and that’s saying something for a 6’4” guard. He had the second best assist rate on the team behind Pierre Crockrell who was #2 in the country, he didn’t turn the ball over all that much, although the high usage probably helps balance that out a bit, and that “just under a steal per game” turns into the #239 steal rate.
There’s a lot there to like, that’s for sure, and a lot that could be even showier if Saran got a little bit more playing time. The flip side of all of that is that Hoop Explorer has him as a net negative against top 200 opponents. UC Irvine’s offense got noticeably worse when Saran hopped off the bench, and the defense took a not-inconsequential dip as well. The offense part may merely be explained by the fact that Saran was likely subbing in for Andre Henry or Justin Hohn, and those guys shot 42% and 38% from behind the three-point line this past season. The on/off numbers stay about the same if you swap the filter to top 100 opponents and the offensive shift gets dramatically different when you look at all of UC Irvine’s opponents.
There’s also a question to be asked about how Saran fits into the Marquette rotation. Let’s go to the scholarship chart.
Class-wise, Saran would land as a sophomore alongside Al Amadou, Zaide Lowery, and Tre Norman. As far as the rotation goes, Saran is obviously a backcourt player, so he’s competing for minutes with Kam Jones, Stevie Mitchell, Chase Ross, and Norman for sure. Given that Sean Jones wrecked his knee in early January, I’m not going to count him as part of the rotation until I hear a Marquette press release saying he’s been cleared for 100% participation. Lowery and Damarius Owens probably fit into this equation as well, even though Owens measures in at 6’8”.
Marquette does have a Tyler Kolek sized hole in the rotation to fill, so it comes down to “Are the guys we’re expecting to have on the roster capable of replacing Kolek’s production on their own?” For whatever it’s worth to you, the BartTorvik.com RosterCast, if you pull Sean Jones out of the rotation because of his injury recovery questions, show Saran at 16% of minutes, which would be less than seven per game. That’s with Lowery not even cracking the top 10 contributors, which I don’t necessarily buy, but that’s what the algorithm says. It also says that essentially swapping Saran in for Jones does nothing to change Marquette’s projection as a top 20 team next season.
That’s also what the algorithm is just guessing at, to a certain extent. Remember earlier when I said Saran averaged 10.1 points, 3.4 rebounds, 1.6 assists, and just under a steal per game while shooting 35% from three?
Tyler Kolek averaged 10.8 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.3 steals, and 36% shooting at George Mason. What if the coaching staff sees a player that can drop into Kolek’s spot — not his production necessarily, just his skills — in the rotation almost seamlessly and keep everyone else’s roles mostly the same? Is that better or worse than trying to get most of the roster to adjust to a new role for next season?