Marquette Game Thread II

[drbluejay]

Great game, great crowd and great senior day but it wasn't an easy blowout as the Jays were up by only 1 point with less than 9 minutes to go.
I can't ever remember so many fans sticking around for the senior speech's. I am so happy for Bello going out like he did.

[Chicagojayfan]

We're so scouting report dependant, their going five out really hurt with how we defend.

But, when it mattered it was great to see us close this one out.

Huge win by a legendary trio of Jays.

Want to go back to this by Cujaysfan because it hits so many important points in such a short post. If you go back in to this season, teams who were able to play a 5 that could stretch to the 3 PT line give us trouble, because of how we run our defense, and because Kalkbrenner has such a huge influence across the team defense that pulling him away from the basket pulls away a lot of that influence

Thankfully, they stepped up in crunch time and pulled it out. A few notes:

Turnovers/Rebounding:
No matter how we shoot or anything else, if we hold onto the ball enough and rebound enough, it seems this team has a shot at winning as the game goes on. And yesterday, we did a good job of that:
Rebounding: 1st game we rebounded 43.7% of the rebounds, yesterday 55.9%, In the first game they had an Offensive Rebound Rate of 38.6, yesterday 18.2
Turnovers: 1st game 20.6% Turnover Rate, and yesterday 8.3%
I think the officiating was more to Marquette's style than ours, but we held onto the ball anyway. I thought we had a couple of turnovers that led to pts in the first half for them, but we largely cleaned that up in the second half

Defense:
This was tough yesterday. Give credit to Shaka and his team for adapting and coming up with a scheme and the effort to play us tough without their 2 key players. If a team can play their center that far away from the basket against us, it's going to be tough for our D. I don't think most teams are going to have the type of personnel they need to outscore us in those situations, but it's a good reminder of how matchups matter in college ball, and I think it's good for us to have gone through this experience yesterday as we may well see a lower conference team like this in the Tourney without a traditional center. Overall Basketball Reference's defensive score for us was 110.3 (7th worst of the season)

That said, I thought the D did a better job in the second half and we got some key stops that led to us stretching it out and taking the game over down the stretch

Offense:
Anytime you shoot 54% from the field and 40% from 3 PT you have a pretty good game offensively. If I had a critique, it's that we let Kalk go without touches too often in the paint and while we got wide open 3's, I think we tended to get a bit better shots when we went to him down the court and either got the paint bucket or the kick out

Overall the 6th best offensive game of the year for us 130.9, with the 8th best eFG% of the year of .648, and we clicked the most when it mattered most

On that note - I'm not going to rerun the whole game to check, but it looked like that baseline action we ran with Baylor was the first time in the game we did that down the stretch? If so, Mac pulled out something special to help ice this one for us

Individual stuff:
Baylor was great again! What an example to the younger guys on the team - he's made a step forward almost in every category over last year - pts/40 from 15.6 to 20.5, 2PT FG% up, 3 PT FG% up, FT attempts up, assists up, Turnovers down, Fouls down. Does everything the team needs to help us win

Trey - another record day with assists, and 11/3 Assist to Turnover is a very good number against the kind of D MU plays on the ball (particularly on a day when the refs were swallowing their whistles). Trey has had similar improvements as Baylor, the only areas where he's lagged are in 3PT shooting and a few more turnovers (not surprising given how much more he's handling the ball). He and Baylor give great examples to our wings/guards on how to prepare and improve in an offseason

Kalk- A pretty dominant game by Kalk, and I think it could have been more dominant if we'd worked a bit harder to get him regular touches - I get that Marquette was doing their best to shut him down inside, but when we did that it forced them to make some ugly choices on who to help defensively.

Bello - Best game of the year for Bello? He was pretty amazing yesterday and it's special to see such a great teammate have that kind of game on Seniors Night

Ashworth - Had some open shots, but they weren't falling yesterday, but I thought he scrapped on D despite giving up a ton of size and weight, and there was a play near the end where Trey got an open 3 for Bello(?) or Baylor where he set a picked that probably got his teeth rattled from the impact.

Miller/Green - we got some good minutes and production from these 2 - 10 pts, 5 boards, with some good hustle from Green and, really from both.

What's Next:
We are so fortunate to see these Seniors play, but this year isn't over yet and it feels like they are set for a nice run ahead. Nova on the road will be tough as they are playing well, and Dixon can play out to the 3 PT line, but we've also figured out some of our ball handling issues that we had the first time we faced them

[SonofFrankTomera]

Baylor, Trey and Kalk were all great, but I think my player of the game goes to Bello: 5-5 with 12 pts and hit that huge layup and a 3 a min later when we couldn’t get a bucket at all!

I agree that the big 3 all stood out and were deserving of my standout player but FARABELLO gets my standout player of the game. It appeared 18,000 fans noticed Bello's game.

+2

[Venturajay]

Nice win, as Mac said in post game presser, special group. Also, going forward, it will be a rarity to have guys stick around 3 or 4 years like Kalk and Trey in the era of free agency (portal/nil).

[TrueBlueJay]

Nice win, as Mac said in post game presser, special group. Also, going forward, it will be a rarity to have guys stick around 3 or 4 years like Kalk and Trey in the era of free agency (portal/nil).

I believe NIL will make it more likely to keep kids in college for 4 years. The portal is the bigger wrinkle in keeping kids in your own program.

[SeattleJay]

We are looking like a very dangerous team. Let’s go get Villanova on the road, get a 2 seed for the BET and knock that door down by winning the BET!

[SeattleJay]

As always, a great summary post by ChicagoJay. Beyond the obvious of a great game for the big 3.: IIdid notice the great pick by Ashworth. He got hit hard but he flattened the defender. That guy makes winning plays.

I felt like Miller played some really solid defense.

Green gives me a lot of hope for the BET. He is long, big, quick (especially for his size) and has a nose for the ball. He gives us a dawg in those physical games.

I think some Marquette fans have been pushing Stevie Mitchell for DPOY. I think he is a very good defender but I think anyone watching that game would think that Kalk was far and away the dominant defender in that game.

[D Jay Fan]

I think where MU felt the loss of Kolek the most was when it was a 1 possession game. He can take over a game.
I like how we use the bench players as the guy who sprints down the floor at top speed on a rebound. Easy baskets, spreads the floor & gives Kalk time to trot

[go_jays]

We're so scouting report dependant, their going five out really hurt with how we defend.

But, when it mattered it was great to see us close this one out.

Huge win by a legendary trio of Jays.

Want to go back to this by Cujaysfan because it hits so many important points in such a short post. If you go back in to this season, teams who were able to play a 5 that could stretch to the 3 PT line give us trouble, because of how we run our defense, and because Kalkbrenner has such a huge influence across the team defense that pulling him away from the basket pulls away a lot of that influence

Thankfully, they stepped up in crunch time and pulled it out. A few notes:

Turnovers/Rebounding:
No matter how we shoot or anything else, if we hold onto the ball enough and rebound enough, it seems this team has a shot at winning as the game goes on. And yesterday, we did a good job of that:
Rebounding: 1st game we rebounded 43.7% of the rebounds, yesterday 55.9%, In the first game they had an Offensive Rebound Rate of 38.6, yesterday 18.2
Turnovers: 1st game 20.6% Turnover Rate, and yesterday 8.3%
I think the officiating was more to Marquette's style than ours, but we held onto the ball anyway. I thought we had a couple of turnovers that led to pts in the first half for them, but we largely cleaned that up in the second half

Defense:
This was tough yesterday. Give credit to Shaka and his team for adapting and coming up with a scheme and the effort to play us tough without their 2 key players. If a team can play their center that far away from the basket against us, it's going to be tough for our D. I don't think most teams are going to have the type of personnel they need to outscore us in those situations, but it's a good reminder of how matchups matter in college ball, and I think it's good for us to have gone through this experience yesterday as we may well see a lower conference team like this in the Tourney without a traditional center. Overall Basketball Reference's defensive score for us was 110.3 (7th worst of the season)

That said, I thought the D did a better job in the second half and we got some key stops that led to us stretching it out and taking the game over down the stretch

Offense:
Anytime you shoot 54% from the field and 40% from 3 PT you have a pretty good game offensively. If I had a critique, it's that we let Kalk go without touches too often in the paint and while we got wide open 3's, I think we tended to get a bit better shots when we went to him down the court and either got the paint bucket or the kick out

Overall the 6th best offensive game of the year for us 130.9, with the 8th best eFG% of the year of .648, and we clicked the most when it mattered most

On that note - I'm not going to rerun the whole game to check, but it looked like that baseline action we ran with Baylor was the first time in the game we did that down the stretch? If so, Mac pulled out something special to help ice this one for us

Individual stuff:
Baylor was great again! What an example to the younger guys on the team - he's made a step forward almost in every category over last year - pts/40 from 15.6 to 20.5, 2PT FG% up, 3 PT FG% up, FT attempts up, assists up, Turnovers down, Fouls down. Does everything the team needs to help us win

Trey - another record day with assists, and 11/3 Assist to Turnover is a very good number against the kind of D MU plays on the ball (particularly on a day when the refs were swallowing their whistles). Trey has had similar improvements as Baylor, the only areas where he's lagged are in 3PT shooting and a few more turnovers (not surprising given how much more he's handling the ball). He and Baylor give great examples to our wings/guards on how to prepare and improve in an offseason

Kalk- A pretty dominant game by Kalk, and I think it could have been more dominant if we'd worked a bit harder to get him regular touches - I get that Marquette was doing their best to shut him down inside, but when we did that it forced them to make some ugly choices on who to help defensively.

Bello - Best game of the year for Bello? He was pretty amazing yesterday and it's special to see such a great teammate have that kind of game on Seniors Night

Ashworth - Had some open shots, but they weren't falling yesterday, but I thought he scrapped on D despite giving up a ton of size and weight, and there was a play near the end where Trey got an open 3 for Bello(?) or Baylor where he set a picked that probably got his teeth rattled from the impact.

Miller/Green - we got some good minutes and production from these 2 - 10 pts, 5 boards, with some good hustle from Green and, really from both.

What's Next:
We are so fortunate to see these Seniors play, but this year isn't over yet and it feels like they are set for a nice run ahead. Nova on the road will be tough as they are playing well, and Dixon can play out to the 3 PT line, but we've also figured out some of our ball handling issues that we had the first time we faced them

Not having Ighodara really hurt them. With him, this is a very different game. Kolek is a great player, but IMO, they were able to fill that void to some extent. But they weren't able to dominate the boards like they did last time. We outrebounded them 35 to 28 in a 87-75 game. Last game Ighodara got 16 by himself and they got 42 total to our 32 in a 72-67 game. That was a void they couldn't fill.

[Chicagojayfan]

...

Not having Ighodara really hurt them. With him, this is a very different game. Kolek is a great player, but IMO, they were able to fill that void to some extent. But they weren't able to dominate the boards like they did last time. We outrebounded them 35 to 28 in a 87-75 game. Last game Ighodara got 16 by himself and they got 42 total to our 32 in a 72-67 game. That was a void they couldn't fill.

It hurt them, but it's more of a mixed bag than you think. Our Defense operates more naturally and more effectively with him in their lineup - Gold shoots about 8 3's per 40, Oso shoots about 1 every 10 games. We've only had a few poor rebounding games all year (we've been one of the better ones in the Country overall) and in Conference when we've had a poor rebounding game we've bounced back in the rematch (UConn, SH for example) we bounced back strong in the rematch with a strong rebounding performance. I think of our poor rebounding performances as more of a focus issue or just having an off game

We may well have a rubber match with them in NY, but I'm more interested in the NCAA tourney at this point