Big East Opener Features #6 Howard vs. #8 Ponds, But Turnovers Key

While a tough call on what should have been a game-winning steal for St. John’s at Seton Hall Saturday prevents a Top 25 match-up of ranked Big East teams, the New Year’s Day opener still features two of the top 8 most valuable basketball players in the country according to the new www.valueaddbasketball.com ratings.

Instead of a chance to beat their fourth ranked opponent this season, Marquette unfortunately faces a St. John’s team coming off its first loss of the season and Shamorie Ponds, the 8^th most valuable player, coming off his only bad game of the season on 2 of 13 shooting and five turnovers against Seton Hall. Markus Howard slipped past Ponds as the most valuable Big East player and 6^th overall after hitting more three-pointers in a 29 minutes stretch than Ponds hit in December.

Nat'l	Big East Player	Team	Value	Class	3 pts, Game Played
6	Markus Howard	Marquette	10.90	3 Jr	49 3-pts in 13 Gms
8	Shamorie Ponds	St. John's	10.27	3 Jr	22 3-pts in 13 Gms
20	Myles Powell	Seton Hall	8.97	3 Jr	41 3-pts in 13 Gms
39	Sam Hauser	Marquette	8.16	3 Jr	34 3-pts in 13 Gms
50	Jessie Govan	Georgetown	7.72	4 Sr	17 3-pts in 13 Gms
59	Alpha Diallo	Providence	7.41	3 Jr	21 3-pts in 13 Gms
100	Phil Booth	Villanova	6.85	4 Sr	32 3-pts in 13 Gms
105	LJ Figueroa	St. John's	6.76	2 So	22 3-pts in 13 Gms
109	Ty-Shon Alexander	Creighton	6.68	2 So	40 3-pts in 12 Gms
113	Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree	Villanova	6.64	2 So	0 3-pts in 13 Gms
180	Collin Gillespie	Villanova	5.87	2 So	20 3-pts in 12 Gms
181	Tyrique Jones	Xavier	5.86	3 Jr	0 3-pts in 13 Gms
186	Eric Paschall	Villanova	5.77	4 Sr	23 3-pts in 13 Gms
191	Josh LeBlanc	Georgetown	5.73	1 Fr	0 3-pts in 13 Gms
199	Max Strus	DePaul	5.68	4 Sr	35 3-pts in 11 Gms
229	Paul Jorgensen	Butler	5.44	4 Sr	35 3-pts in 13 Gms
231	Sandro Mamukelashvili	Seton Hall	5.41	2 So	11 3-pts in 13 Gms
235	Isaiah Jackson	Providence	5.38	4 Sr	19 3-pts in 13 Gms
240	Mitch Ballock	Creighton	5.36	2 So	34 3-pts in 12 Gms
273	Damien Jefferson	Creighton	5.11	2 So	12 3-pts in 12 Gms
281	Zach Hankins	Xavier	5.00	4 Sr	0 3-pts in 14 Gms
285	Joey Brunk	Butler	4.96	2 So	0 3-pts in 13 Gms
325	Marcus Zegarowski	Creighton	4.70	1 Fr	18 3-pts in 12 Gms
346	Kamar Baldwin	Butler	4.62	3 Jr	15 3-pts in 13 Gms
363	Joey Hauser	Marquette	4.54	1 Fr	15 3-pts in 13 Gms

Starting with a 16:16 left and Marquette trailing #14 Buffalo, the next 29 minutes of Marquette basketball bridging into the Southern game featured Markus Howard scoring 62 points on 13 of 15 three-points shooting which was one more than the 12 Ponds hit in December and moved Howard into a distant second behind Detroit’s Antoine Davis’ unbelievable 67 three-pointers.

Marquette faces a team coming off what should have been a dramatic win at Seton Hall, which stunned Kentucky earlier this year, when officials made a mistake on a game-winning steal of an inbound pass – giving the Pirates another chance that they cashed in on for a buzzer beating game-winner. In addition to facing a team looking for revenge for that set-back, Marquette must overcome the team best positioned to take advantage of Marquette’s one glaring weakness, protecting the basketball.

St. John’s joins only Duke, Auburn, LSU and Syracuse from the six major conferences in stealing the ball more than one out of 8 opponent possessions, including an incredible 12 steals in just 76 Seton Hall possessions despite what should have been the 13^th note counting – which would have made it better than one in 6 possessions Saturday night.

If St. John’s can steal the ball that often against Seton Hall, the 20^th best team at protecting the ball and preventing turnovers, it could spell complete havoc against a Marquette team that ranks only 238^th as one of only eight major conference teams who turns the ball over more than one in five possessions.

Joe Hauser not only rounds out the top 25, but his 4.54 Value Add ranks him third among Big East freshman behind only Georgetown’s Josh LeBlanc (5.73) and Creighton’s Marcus Zegarowski (4.70).

The good news is Marquette can play defense as well for the first time in years Jae Crowder compiled the best defensive Value Add (-4.89 AdjD indicates he erased almost 5 points a per 100 trips in 2012), but in the previous four seasons only Henry Ellenson (2016) and JuJuan Johnson (2017) erased more than a point a game until this year when FIVE Marquette players are doing (Jamal Cain, Joseph Chartouny, Theo John, Sam Hauser and Ed Morrow).

Click here for the explanation of the Value Add basketball and how it calculates how much worse a teams average score would be if the player were replaced by a bench player on a mediocre team. Our new piece on the top 20 national players and other stories on Value Add Basketball and Statis-Pro baseball projections for the Brewers and others are at http://www.pudnersports.com/.