Marquette’s season was good, bad and ugly
The abrupt ending to the 2019-20 college basketball season created an everlasting debate for fans of the Marquette men's basketball team.
Would the Golden Eagles have just continued their late-season collapse and been eliminated in their opening games of the Big East and NCAA tournaments?
Or could MU have found the right adjustments and turned its season around in the postseason?
The questions will never be answered after the plug was pulled on the season due to concerns about the spread of coronavirus.
But here are three things that went right and three things that went wrong
with the Golden Eagles this season:
Three things that went right
Markus Howard being Markus Howard: The 5-foot-11 senior guard put together one of the best seasons in program history. He led the nation in scoring at 27.8 points per game and probably would have had a slam-dunk case for national player of year if the Golden Eagles
hadn't lost six of their last seven games.
That swoon can't be laid at the feet of Howard. During the last seven games, he shot 32 for 68 (47.8%) on three-pointers and 51 of 62 (82.2%) on free throws. With the ball in his hands a lot, Howard did commit 28 turnovers in that span.
The sharpshooter attempted 294
three-pointers this season and made 41.2%, an absurd percentage for that amount of long-distance shots.
MU will likely never see this caliber of scorer again.
Emergence of Jayce Johnson: After the transfers of brothers Sam and Joey Hauser, it was clear that MU would need rebounding help this season. The Golden Eagles were able to find a patch for that issue with the 7foot grad transfer who played his first three seasons at Utah.
A right knee sprain suffered before MU's exhibition game slowed Johnson until the conference season. He averaged 6.4 rebounds in Big East games, pulling down 44 in MU's last four games.
Having Johnson on the roster proved to be more important with starting center Theo John playing the entire season with a hand injury and senior Ed Morrow Jr. leaving the team for personal reasons in January.
Jamal and Greg Show: Jamal Cain and Greg Elliott, longtime friends from the Detroit area, flashed promise during their freshman seasons in 2017-18.
Then Elliott redshirted last season with a thumb injury and Cain's inconsistency led to decreased playing time.
The high-flying Cain had some big moments this season, including 17 points off the bench in a victory at Kansas State. Elliott continued to be snakebit by injuries, missing six games after hurting his surgically repaired ankle, but he finished the season with his best game by scoring 11 points in a loss at St. John's.
Elliott and Cain shared the court for most of the second half in that final game of MU's season, helping mount a comeback against the Red Storm that fell just short. But the duo provided hope that they can be key players next season.
Three things that went wrong
Collapse, Part 2: Losing six of seven to end back-to-back seasons is a glaring red flag, one that has MU fans venting frustrations about head coach Steve Wojciechowski.
The Golden Eagles ended the season with their two worst losses: road games at DePaul and St. John's, teams that finished at the bottom of the conference standings.
MU had an ugly, foul-plagued performance against the Blue Demons. Afterward, Howard declared the game at St. John's a "must win." The Golden Eagles promptly started what would be their final game by turning the ball over five times in the opening four minutes and then falling behind by 21 points. A spirited second-half comeback couldn't erase the bad taste of another collapse.
Wojciechowski and everyone in the program said before the season that they wanted to make sure they finished better. They failed to do so in epic fashion.
The other guys: While Howard was great at the end of the season, the rest of the MU's top offensive options struggled.
Sophomore forward Brendan Bailey shot 6 for 28 and had three scoreless games in the Golden Eagles' last six losses. Junior guard Koby McEwen never scored in double figures over MU's last five games and committed 18 turnovers in that span. Senior forward Sacar Anim was a solid three-point threat all season until going 11 for 38 (28.9%) over the last nine games.
At times down the stretch of the season it felt like Howard was MU's only option on offense.
Porous defense: It looked like this season would be the one that MU finally put together an elite defense under Wojciechowski. The pieces seemed to be in place with several long-armed, athletic players.
Opposing offenses found little resistance in MU's defense down the stretch. The Golden Eagles allowed effective field goal percentages, which give more weight to three-pointers, of 54.1 to Creighton on Feb. 18, 58.2 to Providence on Feb. 22, 64.2 to Seton Hall on Feb. 29 and 54.9 to St. John's to end the season on March 7.
MU only forced 329 turnovers all season, including 154 steals. The Golden Eagles' turnover percentage of 15.1 ranked 345th in the nation, according to kenpom.com, a college basketball statistical website.
A limited offense and an inability to get stops created a disastrous finish for MU.