Marquette Basketball:4 stats detailing Markus Howard's greatness

Markus Howard has catapulted himself into the All-American race in the midst of Marquette Basketball’s excellent campaign.

Plenty of digital ink has been spilled this season over Marquette’s superstar guard Markus Howard. And after casually posting 31 points, five rebounds, four assists, two steals, and countless dustings of big man Zach Hankins in a comeback road victory over Xavier, Howard’s Golden Eagles are now 18-3 overall and 7-1 in the Big East.

Yet sometimes, Howard‘s greatness is diminished under the weight of his own stardom. He is only the fifth high-major player to post a 31-5-4-2 stat line this season, but what is that to a guy who has cracked 50 points twice in 12 months and dropped 40 in one half?

Here are four stats outlining Howard’s historic play.

1. Triple-7 Society

Since the 1992-93 season, only 62 players have averaged seven two-point attempts, seven three-point attempts, and seven free throw attempts per game, and only six of them have been high-major players: Trae Young (Oklahoma), JJ Redick (Duke), Troy Bell (Boston College, Stefan Moody (Ole Miss), Reggie Freeman (Texas), and Howard. (Of course, if we up those attempts to eight, eight, and seven respectively, then the total number of high-major players is just three: Young, Redick, and Howard).

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Part of Howard’s improved offensive skill set has come from his newfound ability to consistently worm his way to the free throw line. He is near-automatic from the charity stripe (91.5 percent for his career) and is now much better at drawing more contact inside. In his last five full games – discounting his injury-shortened contest at Georgetown – Howard is averaging 12.6 free throw attempts. Marquette won all five games by the skin of their teeth, largely because Howard has found another way to score on top of his prolific three-point shooting.

2. 24-4-4 Club

Players who have topped 24 points, four rebounds, and four assists in a season since 1992-93 is an even rarer club; just 22 players have accomplished said feat, and zero high-major players – until Howard (though Oklahoma’s Young came within 0.1 rebounds of qualifying).

Despite his height, Howard is proving himself as the singular player who can consistently stuff the stat sheet at the highest levels of college basketball.

3. Marksmanship

Shooting is Howard’s calling card, so it’s no surprise to see him rank ninth in three-point accuracy among players with at least 600 career attempts from beyond the arc (since 1992-93).

Howard is also on pace to approach 1,000 three-point attempts for his career, something only 17 players have done since the early 90’s, including Gerry McNamara, Steph Curry, and Redick. And the only shooter who has been more accurate than Howard over the past three years has been his teammate, Sam Hauser (min. 400 attempts).

4. Heating Up

Of course, Howard’s proclivity for unparalleled scoring binges has launched him into the college basketball zeitgeist. Since Sports-Reference began tracking such data in 2010-11, Howard has the most 45-point games in college basketball with four; no one else has more than two (Chris Clemons, AJ English, Jimmer Fredette, and Ray Lee). Only six other high-major players have accomplished the feat at all, and they all only did it once.

Howard’s ability to splash buckets on top of each other is essentially unprecedented in this era of college basketball. Predicting his next scoring outburst is an impossible task, but sooner feels like a better bet than later.

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The MU junior is on pace to shatter several school marks, and now he is carving out a place in the national record books as well. Marquette is more than just a one-man show, but as long as Howard keeps posting historic numbers, the Golden Eagles will continue to soar.

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Marquette Basketball: 4 stats detailing Markus Howard’s greatness

By Brian Foley | Jan 27, 2019