Wisconsin Basketball: Why Badgers will be better than Marquette in 2019-20
By Cody Larson
Offensive Approaches
The Badgers and the Golden Eagles will contrast each other immensely next season; one of the areas they will most do so is on offense. In terms of scoring production alone, the Badgers look to take a more balanced approach while Marquette is set up for a much more reliance-based attack.
For the latter, that means a large chunk of possessions (and whether or not they end up in points) will depend upon the backcourt duo of Markus Howard and Koby McEwen. Howard had a 37.2 percent usage rate last season (which places him in the top five of all college players), meanwhile, McEwen had a 28.2 percent usage rate during his last played 2017-18 run for Utah State.
It is unfair to assume those percentages don’t cancel each other out a bit, but it is fair to project that half (and maybe more) of Marquette’s possessions will end with the ball in one of their two hands. In a team sport, that is a lot of pressure to put in the hands of two players, especially when dealing with two streaky scorers (Howard shot at a 42 percent clip last season and McEwen shot at a 40 percent clip in 2017-18).
On Wisconsin’s end of the spectrum, they will have a much more even attack. Rather than asking two players to carry their offensive load, they should expect to diversify their shot selection much more accordingly. This allows for the Badgers to find their “hot handed” player at any given moment of any game; whether it be Brad Davison, D’Mitrik Trice, Kobe King, or Nate Reuvers. This is much harder to scheme for on the defensive end.
It is nice to have a go-to scorer when the shot/game clock is running down, but it is also nice to not have your gameplan completely stall, if say, Brad Davison is having an off night. The Golden Eagles should run into this issue more commonly than the Badgers, and that could be the game-defying x-factor come November 17th.