Marquette Basketball: Takeaways from Golden Eagles so far in 2020-21 season
By Max Marmitt
2. DJ Carton Has Been As Good, If Not Better, Than Advertised
After showing a little bit of rust the first few games (understandably after not playing for nearly 9 months), DJ Carton shook off the rust quickly and has been arguably the biggest difference-maker for this ball club, especially in crunch time. Hopefully, this doesn’t come off an as an overreaction, but Carton has been one of my favorite Marquette players to watch in recent memory, as his game is just beautiful.
He didn’t start the first two games, and I vividly remember the first minute he stepped on the floor in the season opener, the offense looked significantly better as a whole. With excellent playmaking abilities, Carton can create points for others (he leads the team in assists), drive to the paint and finish and create space for a bucket even beyond the three-point line.
He’s the best on the team at facilitating the offense, has an impressive vertical leap, has a smooth floater game in the lane, and has found his range from three after struggling the first few games of the season.
On top of that, he leads the team in steals at 1.3 per game (and has been averaging around two steals per game for most of the season). The only two flaws from Carton so far have been occasionally turning over the ball too much and finding himself in foul trouble, two flaws that have strongly reflected the entire team.
With so many unknowns surrounding the fate of Marquette this year, certainly a lot of expectations were placed on Carton. Filling the shoes of Markus Howard is not a one-man job, as Howard led all major conference players in usage rate the past two seasons. With that being said, Carton might be the near-perfect man to take Howard’s position.
The two guards don’t exactly have a similar style of play, but Carton is such an effective player and one of the team’s great leaders to the point where it’s scary to imagine the floor and ceiling of Marquette without the dynamic guard.
In the rivalry win vs Wisconsin, Carton drove to the rim for two go-ahead buckets in the last minute and 30 seconds and drew a foul with less than a second remaining down 1 which ultimately led to a huge 67-65 win (and of course Justin Lewis tipped in the second free throw to secure a win at the buzzer). In a 20-point game against Creighton, Carton hit a must-needed three pointer to give Marquette a 79-75 lead when Creighton had all the momentum.
When he was struggling against Seton Hall for the majority of the game, he became the go-to guy in crunch time, scoring 10 straight Marquette points, including a three from the logo to tie the game at 61 (a Marquette controversial charge call and a gather-step travel cost the game in a near-comeback effort). Carton isn’t the only reliable option in crunch time, but the Ohio State transfer usually seems to come up big.