Marquette Basketball: Can the Golden Eagles’ defense improve enough for the 2018-19 season?

Marquette Basketball is counting on making a big leap defensively as the Golden Eagles look to return to the NCAA Tournament.

After adding productive transfers to the roster and quality opponents to the non-conference schedule, there is one big question circling Marquette this offseason – can the defense take a massive step forward?

In head coach Steve Wojciechowski’s first two seasons in Milwaukee, the defense was relatively solid, ranking 69th and 88th respectively (by KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency). But in the last two years, while Marquette played a highly entertaining offensive style, the defense cratered to 165th and then 182nd in 2018.

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A top-100 defense is certainly not spectacular, but it would be a marked improvement over what the Golden Eagles have tossed out there for two years. But is it even possible for a defense to really improve that much over one year?

Beginning in 2013-14, when conference realignment shook up college basketball, I looked at every major conference program – ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac 12, SEC – who ranked between 150 and 200 in adjusted defensive efficiency through 2016-17 (obviously, we can’t see how teams improved off the 2017-18 season yet).

Over those 4 years, 23 major conference teams limped to a defensive ranking between 150 and 200. Of those 23, 18 improved their defensive ranking the following season, including 10 programs that improved by at least 86 spots.

From 2014-15 to 2015-16, Indiana jumped from 200 to 59 in the rankings; Minnesota also made a 141-spot leap from 2015-16 to 2016-17, moving from 163 to 22. Pittsburgh and DePaul also made triple-digit jumps. In fact, the average improvement for those 23 schools was 54.5 spots (including the teams who declined defensively).

More good news for Marquette fans – of those 18 teams that improved defensively over the offseason, only 2 came via head coaching hires. The other 16 schools counted on further development under the same coach, and it worked. (Admittedly, a good chunk of those schools did get better heading into the coach’s second season, while Wojo is now entering year 5).

Now for the bad news – Marquette was one of the five teams on the list to get worse defensively from one year to the next. That isn’t necessarily damning evidence of Wojo’s ability (or inability) to coach defense, but it isn’t a positive sign either.

Obviously just scrolling through numbers is helpful, but there is nuance within each program that helped create those defensive issues in the first place. And for Marquette, as we have hashed over repeatedly, one glaring weakness was the size of the Golden Eagles’ backcourt. Andrew Rowsey and Markus Howard – both listed at 5-foot-11 – would have been defensive liabilities even if they were 100 percent focused on that end of the court. And because they carried such heavy offensive burdens and were not the most attentive defensive players anyways, the issue only got worse.

Howard and Rowsey played together for large portions of the game, so opposing guards were generally able to have their way with Marquette. Now that Joseph Chartouny – a 6-foot-4, defensive-minded grad transfer – figures to move into the starting lineup for the graduating Rowsey, will MU be able to move towards respectability on defense? Redshirt junior Ed Morrow should also make an impact on that end following his transfer from Nebraska, as should further improvement from Marquette’s young players.

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Should Marquette’s defensive struggles over the last two seasons be attributed to coaching and scheme, or can fans chalk it up to roster youth and undersized guards? The answer will not only define the 2018-19 season but the entire Wojo era.