Big East Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2020-21 season

Projected Starters:

Guards – DJ Carton-SO* and Kobe McEwen-SR

Forwards – Jamal Cain-SR, Theo John-SR, and Dawson Garcia-FR

Bench – Gregg Elliott-SR, Justin Lewis-FR, Jose Perez-JR*, Oso Ighodaro-FR, Symir Torrence-SO, Dexter Akanno-FR

The Markus Howard era is over, and while the 2-time All American made Marquette basketball appointment television in his four seasons in Milwaukee, they didn’t win a single NCAA Tournament game.

The timing was right for a passing of the guard for Steve Wojciechowski’s program and the unexpected transfer of former Ohio State point guard DJ Carton could not have come at a better time. Carton, who recently was granted a waiver for immediate eligibility, came out of high school as the 34th ranked recruit and 4th ranked point guard in the 2019 class.

He was pretty good as a Buckeye too, scoring double figures in 13 of the 20 games, he played a season ago. Most impact transfers in the Big East transferred up (see Nate Johnson, Gardner Webb to Xavier, and Takal Molson, Canisius to Seton Hall), so there are legitimate questions on if they are ready for the Big East grind, which is not the case for Carton.

Carton will have help in the backcourt with the return of Koby McEwen (9.5 Pts, 5.0 Reb, 3.2 Ast) who started every game in 2019-20, and Greg Elliott (5.1 Pts, 2.5 Reb, 1.3 Ast). That makes up a solid guard rotation, but neither were dynamic offensive players or shooters in 19-20. Elliott did shoot 41% from outside last season but averaged less than one 3-point make per game.

The question is still outstanding for Wojo. What’s he going to do to replace the 48 points per game that he lost when Howard, Sacar Anim, and Brendan Bailey walked out the door last May? Those three were primarily responsible for the 78 points per game the Golden Eagles averaged, good enough for the 29th best scoring offense in the country. Marquette needed all those points as they owned the worst defense in the Big East.

The answer: For the first time since the days of Henry Ellenson, Marquette will look to its frontcourt to be the focal point of its offense as two top 100 freshmen step onto campus in Dawson Garcia (No. 36 FR by 247) and Justin Lewis (No. 97 FR by 247).

Garcia 6’11 and Lewis 6’7 are bonafide scorers who both were double-double machines in their senior high school seasons that led to McDonald’s All-American honors for Garcia and a first-team All-State Selection for the Baltimore grown Lewis. Veteran Theo John (5.1 Pts, 5.2 Reb, 0.7 Ast) will join the two freshmen in the frontcourt, although John is more of a help on the defensive end of the floor. He’ll be expected to increase his scoring numbers in his senior season.

The x-factor for this team is 6’7 Jamal Cain (5.2 Pts, 4.2 Reb, 0.8 Ast). The senior to be played a career-high 18.4 minutes per game a season ago, but not yet in his career has he been asked to be more than a role player. The time is now for Cain as the path to a big senior season began to be cleared by the transfer of Joey Hauser the year before last, and now the early NBA entry for Bailey.

Cain’s proved to be effective when given opportunities with a 60% true shooting percentage, second on the team last season, but he only took 4 shots per contest. Howard and Anim took a combined 30 shots per game, nearly 50% of Marquette’s attempts.

The successful recruitment of DJ Carton was massive in ensuring the Golden Eagles don’t fall to the bottom of the Big East in 2020-21, but there are a ton of questions about who is going to take the 30 shots a night previously retained by Howard and Anim. If the freshmen can quickly adjust to the Big East, and Cain can become a consistent double-digit scorer, this team could have upside above a 7th place finish.

But if it takes them too long to find where that offense is going to come from, they could find themselves a bottom tier Big East team with a nationwide 243rd ranked scoring defense.