It is time to talk about Marquette women’s basketball’s three-point shooting.
Long time readers will note that I have lamented that head coach Megan Duffy’s interior focused attacks have not been getting much in the way of assistance from MU’s outside shooting. It’s a simple concept: If Rose Nkumu and Jordan King are respected three-point shooters, then Liza Karlen and Frannie Hottinger will have more space to operate on the inside. As a team under Duffy’s direction, Marquette has shot somewhere between 30% and 35% from behind the three-point line every season. This oscillates somewhere between “please stop, actually, this is bad” to “my gut says 35% is just fine, but actually this is top 50 in the country?”
Things are better this year. Right now, through four games, Marquette is the 11th most accurate three-point shooting team in the country at — and I am very serious here — a conversion rate of 44.2% as a team. This is giving MU the fourth best effective field goal percentage in the country and makes them Her Hoop Stats’ 30th best offense in the country.
A breakdown, if you will oblige me:
Liza Karlen: 2-for-5, 40%
Kenzie Hare: 15-for-27, 56%
Jordan King: 8-for-14, 57%
Rose Nkumu: 7-for-7, 100%
Last time I wrote a preview, I said with regards to Kenzie Hare, and I quote, “[50%] from behind the three-point line might not last all season.” Mea culpa, Kenzie. You didn’t need to shoot 5-for-7 on triples against Saint Peter’s just to prove me wrong. It was neat, don’t get me wrong, but okay, point made!
With that said, I presume that the shooting is going to cool down at some point. Last year, according to Her Hoop Stats, no player in the country with more than 50 attempts shot better than 53.3%, and only one team — hi, Gonzaga — shot better than 40% for the year….. and the Bulldogs only hit 40.5%. With that said, there’s a long stretch of cooling off that can happen and MU would still have an incredibly effective offensive weapon at their disposal. The longer the hot shooting continues, the more teams will have to respect it all season long. You’d much rather be the team that everyone is deathly afraid of getting a shot off as opposed to the team that the scouting reports says to let them hit two before you worry about defending them.
With that said? Maybe Marquette could get a little less particular about shooting threes as well? Megan Duffy has very much veered away from being a Let It Fly offense during her time in Milwaukee, no matter whether or not her charges were good at knocking the shot down. If the current three-point rate continues, it will be Duffy’s highest three-point attempt rate as MU’s head coach…. and Marquette currently ranks #203 in the country in terms of what percentage of their shots are behind the arc. We don’t have to get crazy with the Cheez Whiz here, I’m just saying one or two more attempts a game just to help spread the floor even more.
Game #5: vs Boston College Eagles (3-2)
Date: Friday, November 24, 2023
Time: 3:30pm Central
Location: Suncoast Credit Union Arena, Florida Southwestern State College, Fort Myers, Florida
Streaming: FSWBucs.com
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWBB
This is the first ever meeting between Marquette and Boston College.
Time to repeat something I said when it was announced in July that the Golden Eagles would face Boston College in this event: Boston College hasn’t been an NCAA tournament team since going to the Sweet Sixteen in 2006. Worse, the Eagles have only had a winning season twice since 2011, going 20-12 in 2019-20 and 21-12 in 2021-22. Yes, those are pretty recent, but also BC went 7-12 in The Weird COVID Year and just 16-17 last year with a 5-13 mark in ACC play. It is not expected that the Eagles will make a big jump forward this season, as they’re picked to finish 13th in the 15 team ACC.
Boston College has been alternating wins and losses so far this season, which means they’re on track to lose to Marquette after beating Providence, 71-56, last time out. In fairness to the Eagles, one of their losses is to then-#13 Ohio State, falling 88-66 in Columbus. That’s a “these things happen” loss, and in this case, it happened immediately with a 32-11 first quarter.
There are a trio of starters for the Eagles that are doing most of their scoring. Teya Sidberry, Andrea Daley, and Dontavia Waggoner are all averaging between 12 and 15 points per game. Part-time starter T’Yana Todd is chipping in 11.4 points per game in nearly 27 minutes a night….. and that is it for notable scoring threats from Boston College. Those four do an awful lot elsewhere on the floor for BC, pretty much everything else if we’re being honest, although Kaylah Ivey leads the squad in assists at 4.2 a night in a shade over 26 minutes. Todd is the only serious long range shooting threat on the entire roster through five games, dropping in nearly 48% of her three-pointers on 4.6 attempts per game. No one else shoots better than 28%, and other than Sidberry, no one else shoots better than — and this is not a joke — the 9.1% from long range that JoJo Lacey has on 22 attempts so far.
Marquette’s going to have to be careful on the glass in this one. They need to end possessions, because Boston College is #85 in the country so far this season in offensive rebounding rate, and pulling in 37% of their own misses for a second chance is the only thing that has the Eagles within shooting distance of being a top 100 offense. On the other end of the court, BC just can’t stop giving up offensive rebounds. #318 in the country in DReb rate sounds like Liza Karlen, Frannie Hottinger, and Skylar Forbes can feast on second chances, and we all know how much Megan Duffy likes to boost MU’s efficiency with second chances.