With two games remaining in the regular season, Minnesota sits at 18-11 (8-10 Big Ten) and remains on the NCAA tournament bubble. To reach the tourney, the Gophers need to keep the Coffey flowing.
Junior Amir Coffey’s 31-point, 12-rebound performance at Northwestern propelled Minnesota to a 62-50 victory last week and continued a winning trend when Amir’s usage is high.
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Prior to the season’s first game, we shared some quick thoughts. After a long layoff, Marquette is back in action tonight and sitting at 8-2. Below is rambling where we compare actual results thus far to our projections, including select player commentary.
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State of the Program
The team needed shooting and scorers. The staff added it. Juniors Sam Hauser and Markus Howard are both sensational shooters, but there are several others capable of having exceptional shooting seasons.
The team needed length and athleticism. The staff added it. We saw an influx last year with Jamal Cain and Greg Elliott. This year you add in 21-year old freshman Brendan Bailey and there are numerous options for guarding long wings.
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Overall, the Big Ten’s composition is such that a couple of teams that look to be bottom-half teams could sneak up and snag a top half (and tournament) spot, especially with some consensus top-half teams we have concerns about, such as Nebraska. We see Minnesota as a bottom half team (around 10th), but there are several areas where, if they perform well, they can elevate their standing. Two of those are discussed below: 2-point field goal percentage and Amir Coffey’s usage.
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We recently commented on the difficulty in projecting minutes for Marquette’s stacked 2018-19 roster. Today, we look at projecting usage play-by-player, which is (or at least feels like) a much easier task.
Before getting to our projections, we also looked at how many games each player posted a single-game usage greater than 25% thus far in their career (using KenPom.com data; minimum of 10 minutes playing time in a game).
Only three 2018-19 eligible Warriors have had more than five >25% usage games in their career, led by Markus Howard’s 34 over two seasons.
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Source? Be Careful With Your Nike EYBL Stats
The D1Circuit.com website looks nice and has some good information within it. However, when it comes to statistics, they’ve quickly proven to have major issues again in 2017.
In the past, we’ve approached D1Circuit with comments, but have been unable to find a willing ear.
Simply put, we’d recommend you double-check them as a primary source for statistics unless they put in some basic logic and controls for identifying bad data.
The latest example relates to Howard Pulley and their opening night game. Several in the Twin Cities media have stated 3-point shooting statistics for 2018 Gabe Kalscheur that don’t jibe with the NikeEYB.com site or Gamechanger.com.
Let’s take a look:
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Markus Howard Compared to Rivals’ Top Freshmen List
Rivals.com released their ‘top ten freshman’ to date and added another seven who they felt were in the conversation. Neither of Marquette’s freshmen were included, but both have enjoyed strong year one campaigns.
Sam Hauser, who sports a top-40 offensive rating, doesn’t make the cut because of his low usage. Markus Howard has a great argument for inclusion, but his minutes played are a bit low compared to the Rivals’ group.
Here’s the list, along with each player’s respective offensive rating and usage (per KenPom.com):
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Marquette’s Defensive Rebounding Remains Strong Despite Size
Entering the 2016-17 season, many were concerned with Marquette’s defensive rebounding and with good reason. A year ago, MU ranked just #225 in defensive rebounding percentage after allowing opponents to rebound 30.7% of their misses. The Warriors also lost their top defensive rebounder Henry Ellenson (24.1% DR%) to the NBA.
Marquette allowed nonconference opponents an OR% of greater than 30.0% eight times in 13 games last season. In 12 nonconference games this year, Marquette has done so only once (IUPUI – 33.3%). MU’s is allowing an opponent OR% of 25.5% – good for #43 in the nation. The two top OR% teams MU has faced were uw-madison (avg 38.9%; against MU had just 29.6%) and Georgia (33.2% avg; 22.9%).
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