Marquette Basketball: The good, bad, and the ugly for the Golden Eagles

The Bad

Markus Howard’s efficiency: Howard is doing so many things well while carrying a massive load for Marquette. He is averaging career highs in points, rebounds, and assists, playing markedly better defense, limiting his fouls, and soaking up over 35 minutes per game as Marquette’s only perimeter creator.

However, his shooting numbers are way down after finishing just 7-29 against UW; Howard is now shooting just 39.8 percent from the field and 34.1 percent from beyond the arc, by far the worst marks of his career. It’s okay for Howard to shoot a lot and his three-point percentage will eventually tick upwards (he has weirdly missed a lot of wide open threes this year), but he needs to cut down on his diet of step-back heaves. When he gets going, he can make anything, but he shouldn’t be forcing this many contested jumpers, especially because he is having enough success inside and at the free throw line.

Big man foul trouble: Marquette has largely cut down on ticky-tack perimeter fouls, yet it’s two primary bigs – Theo John and Morrow – rank in the bottom one percent in fouls committed per 40 minutes (8.6 apiece). John is actually the only high-major player to commit over 35 fouls so far this season in less than 200 total minutes (38 whistles in 177 minutes). Fouls were a problem for John last season as well, and while he is committing far fewer moving screen violations, he is still incapable of staying grounded when an opponent makes the slightest twitch towards the basket.

Now, the two players do get 10 combined fouls to work with each game, and last year’s starter Matt Heldt is available off the bench, but it would be much appreciated by fans, coaches, and players alike if Morrow and John could each finish a game with less than four fouls.

The rest of the Big East: The conference’s outlook is not nearly as dire as it seemed two weeks into the season, but it’s clear that Marquette will not have many opportunities for headlining wins once the Big East season rolls around (MU may be a statement win for other Big East foes though). Villanova is nowhere near the same team we saw over the previous five years, and no one else has really popped in their stead around the rest of the conference.

There are still a bunch of quality teams capable of winning on any night, and the conference may still land five teams in the NCAA tournament, but it’s unlikely anyone will be a true Final Four contender come March, including Marquette.