Keys to a Marquette NCAA Bid

Despite having what may be his most physically talented team in his five years at Marquette, many fans seem pessimistic on this team's odds of making the tournament this year. Regardless of talent, it seems this team is giving its faithful more questions than answers. Will Trent Lockett find his Arizona State form? Can Junior Cadougan limit his turnovers? Does Jamil Wilson have the ability to translate his physical gifts into on-court dominance? And can a Marquette team that struggled with cupcakes hope to manage their Big East schedule?

I'm still confident Marquette can battle through and reach the NCAA Tournament. Not only that, I think this team could still make a deep run in March. The necessary pieces are there, but those pieces have to work together to make that possible. Here are my keys to Marquette finishing the season strong:

1) Manage the Point: Junior has turned the ball over 18 times in the past 4 games as opposed to 16 turnovers in the first 8 games. Even still, he made key plays that led to wins against LSU and NCCU. Earlier in the season, Buzz alluded to Derrick Wilson showing starting ability but sticking with Junior out of loyalty. When Junior is faltering, Buzz has to be willing to give DW the keys. Per 40 minutes, Junior is averaging 4.3 turnovers to Derrick's 2.1, but their turnover rate is actually fairly similar: Junior turns the ball over 26.6% of the time he has the ball (slightly high for a PG) while Derrick turns it over 22.7% of the time (about average). The difference of the per 40 numbers and turnover rate indicates DW is more willing to share ball-handling duties with the other guys on the court. While Junior is scoring more and assisting at a higher rate, his proclivity for turning the ball over puts is par of the reason Marquette has needed late-game heroics. Buzz should be quicker with the hook to force Junior to understand that turning the ball over won't be tolerated. Hopefully better ball management will lessen the need for those heroics.

2) Step Up, Jamil: Jamil Wilson has the highest offensive rating of players that average 60% of the team's minutes, but is fourth of those players in terms of usage behind Cadougan, Blue, and Lockett. In the NCCU broadcast, Jim McIlvaine talked about how Stanton Kidd, the Eagles' best offensive player, needed to shoot because by being selfish he gave his team the best chance at winning. The same could be said for Jamil. He can score many ways but often passes up good looks and is unwilling to take over a game. In the opening 30 minutes against Green Bay, Wilson scored 14 points on 5/9 shooting including 4/5 behind the arc. In the final 10 minutes, he took only one shot, a dunk that he made. With the game on the line, the best players have to be willing to play. Jamil has to be willing to take the ball as he did consistently through the first 30 minutes and continue scoring and step on the opposition's throat. Instead, he allowed others to shoot and Marquette went 3/10 from the field over the final 10 minutes with one of the three makes being his basket. As Jim McIlvaine inferred your best players need to play. In the case of Jamil Wilson, that's him.

3) Manage the Schedule: The first 8 games will be key. Marquette takes on Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville on the road, games in which their odds of winning per Pomeroy are never better than 19%. That means winning at home early is important. Marquette should look to win at least 4/5 at home in that span against Connecticut, Georgetown, Seton Hall, Providence, and South Florida. After that, Marquette only plays three games against Pomeroy top-40 teams and all three are at home (Pitt, Syracuse, Notre Dame). While they do play on the road in 6 of their last 10 games, only one is against a team in Pomeroy's top-80 (#43 Georgetown). This is a schedule set up to get MU to the tournament.

There are, of course, other questions. Will Lockett and Jake Thomas start producing offensively like they did at their previous stops? Can Vander Blue find consistency? Where will Todd Mayo fit in? Can the defense start stringing together consecutive stops? But those I'm not as worried about. Those are all things that should improve with time, and if not, there are other players that can make up for the deficiencies.

Jerome Whitehead dead at age 56

Jerome Whitehead was found dead on December 20th in Southern California. Whitehead helped lead the Warriors to the national championship in 1977 and played in the NBA for 11 seasons.

Whitehead finished with the following stats in the NBA during his career with the San Diego Clippers, Golden State Warriors, Dallas Mavericks, Utah Jazz, San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Cavaliers.

At Marquette, he earned All American honors from Converse and NABC during the '77-'78 season.  He is currently 4th all time in FG% at 54.8%.  He is also in the top 20 all time for career rebounds.  He earned the MVP of the Milwaukee Classic in 1977.

 Whitehead may best be remembered for the winning basket with less than one second left against UNCC in the Final Four.  With the game tied 49-49, Butch Lee sent a full court pass down to Whitehead who caught it off a deflection from Cornbread Maxwell, dribbled once and banked the layup in to win 51-49.  It took the referees several minutes to confirm the basket was good which sent the Warriors into pandemonium and into the championship game against the Tarheels.

RIP Jerome Whitehead

Gardner about to crack top 100 players in the country

We are planning a national release of the Value Add stats early next week, but we can preview the Marquette rankings before the rest are public and on www.valueaddbasketball.com.

Many were surprised when I wrote preseason that I just didn't believe MU had a top 100 player, and now I may be wrong.  Davante Gardner has shot up 141 spots to 114th - putting him in the top 3% of all basketball players and in a spot where he could give Marquette an All-Big East selection.

I realize Chris Otule is playing great defense and Davante let a big man that Otule had contained go baseline on him verses LSU, but Gardner is getting so dominant in just 20 minutes a game that I almost believe you need to start Chris but perhaps go to a 15/25 minute rotation to get Davante a few more minutes.  In addition to unbelievably efficient numbers including the only 270-pound or better player hitting over 75% of his free throws (81% to be exact), he is truly a force.  His two 5-steal games make up for a few defensive lapses - the guy is just clever.  Who would believe he would be one of only a few players in the country to be among the national leaders in both blocked shots and steals.

Rnk	Marquette player	Ht	Yr	Off	Def	PG/Per	Total
114	Davante Gardner	6' 8"	Jr	4.40	-1.55		5.95
332	Jamil Wilson	6' 7"	Jr	3.12	-0.82		3.93
713	Junior Cadougan	6' 1"	Sr	1.17	0.24	1.50	2.43
1051	Chris Otule	6' 11"	Sr	1.38	-0.25		1.63
1179	Juan Anderson	6' 6"	So	0.17	-1.23		1.39
1194	Derrick Wilson	6' 1"	So	0.35	-0.53	0.50	1.38
1196	Vander Blue	6' 4"	Jr	1.00	0.12	0.50	1.37
1261	Steve Taylor	6' 7"	Fr	0.99	-0.29		1.29
1327	Jake Thomas	6' 3"	Jr	0.96	-0.22		1.18
1542	Trent Lockett	6' 5"	Sr	0.16	-0.74		0.90
1881	Jamal Ferguson	6' 4"	Fr	0.18	-0.38		0.56

Overall, the story continues to be incredibly balances as everyone on the roster is in the top half of all players, except for Todd Mayo who doesn't have enough minutes but was projected to be the 4th best player on the team behind Gardner, J. Wilson, Blue.

Despite fluctuations from game-to-game, Jamil Wilson has been very consistent over every few game stretches.  He was projected at 329th, was 366th early this month, and is now 332nd, always in the top 10% of all players.

Despite the bad outing verses Green Bay, Junior Cadougan held very steady as the third best player due to dominating Wisconsin and second most valuable player against LSU.

Chris Otule's defensive presence cannot be measured, and when you account for that on top of him already ranking as the 4th most valuable on the team, you can see why it is a tough choice for Buzz to decide which of his four most valuable players to play.

While certainly we see the key moments from Vander Blue and Trent Lockett, missed shots and turnovers have them both below the average 1.00 overall offensive rating in www.kenpom.com as doing a little more to hurt the offense than help it - but we can see they could take off.

MU’s best FT of the Century (96%) beats LSU; Gardner’s 81% tops of any BIG man in country

I’m not sure if MU fans realize what they saw Saturday when MU hit 24 of 25 free throws to beat LSU 84-80.  The 96% from the line is the best Marquette has shot in 409 games this century (since the 2000-2001 season began).  It is very rare for a team's free throw shooting to change who wins or loses the game, but the was not only the greatest shooting percentage of the century but MU did it in a game in which MU would have LOST the game with average free throw shooting of 17 of 25.

The team was led by a 9-9 performance by 6-foot-8, 270 pound Davante Gardner.  There are 49 players 270 pounds or bigger in D1 basketball, and they average 56% from the line and Davante’s 81% for the season makes him the only of these 49 above 75%.

Overall, D1 players average hitting 69% of their free throws, so every time a player hits a free throw he “adds” .31 points above what was expected, and every time he misses he takes .69 off the board (see end of this points for the very advanced calculations for 1-and-1 front ends, offensive rebounds etc., but this basic formula is close).

On Saturday, the team shot even better than Steve Novak did for his career.  Novak made 63 more shots that an average player would have when he went 243 of 261 (93%) so for his career. The rest of MU's players this Century have combined for a 71% mark from the line, so with Novak MU has shot three percent better than the average team of the century resulting in 252 more points in 13 seasons than would be average.  So MU's overall 72% from the line beginning in 2000-2001 means instead of scoring 29,799 points in those 409 games, MU has scored 30,031.

	FTM	FTA	FT%	Plus/Minus
Steve Novak	243	261	93%	63
All other MU this century	6,297	8,852	71%	189
Total 21st century	6,540	9,113	72%	252

However Saturday was the first time MU had ever hit 96% from the line in the 344 games in which they got to the line at least 15 times (the average team goes 14 of 20 or 14 of 21 on a given night, so below 15 attempts is very low).  The only two times MU ever shot this high a percent previously was in two losses in which MU rarely made it to the line (12-12 against ECU in 2003 and 7-7 against UAB in 2005).

Saturday was one of the few times free throw shooting was the difference

A point I always stress is how very rare it truly is for free throw shooting to be the difference in a game.  Teams are going to usually shoot fairly close to 69%, and unless it’s a one or two point game, getting to the line and the other three factors (field goal shooting, offensive rebounding and turnovers) are more important than the slight fluctuation of a point or two in scoring based on how well you shoot while there.  However, on Saturday MU scored 7 points MORE than they would have with average (17 of 25) shooting, so they would have lost 77-80 rather than winning 84-80.

Below are MU’s best 20 and worst 10 free throw shooting performances of the century and in 26 of those 30 games the great or terrible free throw shooting did not change the winner of the.  The only other times besides Saturday that it did were the 19-20 outing against Missouri during the Final Four run of 2003 when MU would have lost in regulation with average free throw shooting, the 79-76 win in 2010 vs. Cincy which MU would have lost without 16 of 17, and on the flip side 63-61 loss at South Florida when MU would have won 61-57 with average free throw shooting. 

Of course 1 or 2 points games can be decided by free throw shooting, and MU’s 4 of 9 against Green Bay was two points LESS than expected, so could have meant a shot in overtime to avoid the upset.  But in 278 of 409 MU games this century MU’s free throw shooting has been within 2 points either way of average, while in 92 games MU has shot 3 or points better and in just 39 games MU has shot 3 points or more worse than expected.

The following are the best 20 free throw shooting days, the worst 10, and the Plus/Minus on how many points MU added or subtracted at the line.

Rank	Result	Opponent	MU pts	FT	FTA	FT%	Plus/minus	Season	Change result?
1	W	LSU	84	24	25	96	6.75	2013	Lost 77-80
2	W	@DEP	89	22	23	95.7	6.13	2012	No
3	L	Lville	70	21	22	95.5	5.82	2003	No
4	W	Mizzou	101	19	20	95	5.2	2003	L Reg (W96-92 OT)
5	L	UAB	76	18	19	94.7	4.89	2003	No
6	W	@Cinci	79	16	17	94.1	4.27	2010	Lost 75-76 OT
7	W	UH	76	28	30	93.3	7.3	2005	No
8	W	UWM	64	18	20	90	4.2	2012	No
9	L	@PITT	79	17	19	89.5	3.89	2007	No
10	W	UAB	98	33	37	89.2	7.47	2003	No
11	W	WVU	75	24	27	88.9	5.37	2009	No
12	W	CSU	89	24	27	88.9	5.37	2008	No
13	W	Lville	74	16	18	88.9	3.58	2012	No
14	W	Nova	80	31	35	88.6	6.85	2007	No
15	L	@ND	75	15	17	88.2	3.27	2011	No
16	W	DEP	79	15	17	88.2	3.27	2008	No
17	W	UH	85	15	17	88.2	3.27	2002	No
18	W	PC	96	22	25	88	4.75	2008	No
19	W	@Lville	77	22	25	88	4.75	2004	No
20	W	DEP	82	22	25	88	4.75	2001	No
335	W	@TUL	82	11	21	52.4	-3.49	2005	No
336	W	IPFW	80	12	23	52.2	-3.87	2008	No
337	W	ISU	59	16	31	51.6	-5.39	2007	No
338	W	@WVU	61	10	20	50	-3.8	2012	No
339	L	@Cinci	68	8	16	50	-3.04	2005	No
340	L	@USF	56	10	23	43.5	-5.87	2009	Won 61-57
341	W	WISC	60	7	17	41.2	-4.73	2013	No
342	L	SU	58	6	15	40	-4.35	2007	No
343	W	@USF	59	7	19	36.8	-6.11	2011	No
344	W	UMBC	68	6	18	33.3	-6.42	2007	No

I’m sure LSU fans couldn’t believe Davante Gardner hit all 9 of his free throws despite hard fouls, and running the court twice to take on a hard foul at the rim and save a long pass with a ballet move an end from the end line.  The fact is when teams see a huge guy step to the line they expect to see a Shaq like miss, but with his nine hits, Davante is clearly the best BIG man at the line in America.

Of the 49 guys who weigh 270 or better in D1 ball, the average guy shoots 56% from the line, and only 29 of the 49 are above even 50%. Here are the top 10:

Jer	270-pound or bigger FT	Team	Ft	In	Wt	Yr	FTM	FTA	FT%
54	Davante Gardner	Marquette	6	8	290	Jr	34	42	81%
44	Shaquille Cleare	Maryland	6	9	270	Fr	15	20	75%
50	Ian Chiles	Morgan St.	7	2	270	Jr	18	24	75%
34	Derrick Williams	Richmond	6	6	270	Jr	74	99	75%
42	Reggie Johnson	Miami	6	10	292	Sr	35	49	71%
25	Derrick Nix	Michigan St.	6	9	270	Sr	35	50	70%
41	Stephen Hurt	Lipscomb	6	10	285	Fr	21	30	70%
40	Kendrick Washington	Arkansas St.	6	7	274	Jr	22	33	67%
32	Andre Almeida	Nebraska	6	11	314	Sr	13	20	65%
20	A.J. Hammons	Purdue	7	1	280	Fr	20	31	65%

Advanced Calculations on the impact of free throws

Now for the advanced stats guys, I am sure you are running through a bunch of scenarios that would throw off the simple equation of plus-31% for made free throws and minus-69% for missed free throws.  It is true that this equation only measures the impact of the free throw make or miss itself and not what happens after.

In short, if the free throw made is the front end of a 1-and-1, then the make is actually worth a full point (1.00) because not only have you made the free throw in question (plus 0.31), but you have also given yourself another free throw you would not have had, which results in another 0.69 points on average.  My model estimates that about 1 in 10 free throws are the front end of one-and-ones, but will certainly alter that if someone has actual figures.  If 10% of all free throws are the front end of one-and-ones, then the overall made free throw would be worth plus-0.38 points.

	Impact	Off Reb Pts	Total impact
Made front of 1-1 (10%)	1.00	-	1.00
Made any other (90%)	0.31	-	0.31
Estimated impact of all made FT			0.38
Miss 2nd of 2, 3rd of 3 or "and 1" (43% of misses)	(0.69)	0.25	(0.44)
Miss technical (3%)	(0.69)	-	(0.69)
Miss 1st of 2 or 2nd of 3 (44%)	(0.69)	-	(0.69)
Miss front of 1-1 (10%)	(1.38)	0.25	(1.13)
Estimated impact of all misses			(0.64)

Now on the flip side, if you miss a free throw on which there can be no rebound (technical, first of two or 1^st or 2^nd of three free throws), then you have cost your team 0.69 points.

However, if you miss the front of the one-and-one you have cost yourself not only that free throw (minus .69) but the chance at the 2^nd free throw (another 0.69), so the missed front end of a one-and-one actually costs a team 1.38 points.

But, when you miss that free throw, or any other free throw that results in a chance at a rebound, then your team has about a 25% chance of grabbing the offensive rebound.  Teams grab close to 33% of all offensive rebounds, but I believe it has to be lower on free throws and higher on field goals, so the 25% is an estimate subject to change.

The percentages listed in the left column are also all subject to change, and the result of me running models that could be slightly off.  There have been just 242 technical fouls called on players so far this season, so I expect only about 3% of all foul shots are the result of technical fouls.  The one-and-one front end can obviously only occur on the 7^th, 8^th or 9^th foul of a half and only then if it is NOT an offensive ball possession foul or a shooting foul, so at 0 to 6 per game and even in those cases the 2^nd shot  of the one-and-one not fitting this category, I believe only about 10% of all free throws made or missed are the front end of a one-and-one.

As for the rest of the foul shots and which ones have or do not have rebound opportunities, it looks about even when I run models.

When you make the front end you get a 2^nd shot that can be rebounded, and the final shot of any shooting foul can be rebounded.  The first of two shots cannot be rebounded, but when you get a 3-shot opportunity you have two non-rebound free throws and just one shot that can be rebounded, and then any flagrant has to be added, so when I run simple models it appears that once we get past front ends and technicals, about 44% of shots have a rebound and 43% do not.

If these assumptions are correct then a missed free throw on average costs a team about 0.64 points and a made free throw adds about 0.38 points, and even if it turns out a few of the percentages I have are off a bit it’s not going to change either figure much.