[Paint Touches] Preseason Previews: Maine

[PaintTouches]

Preseason Previews: Maine

Marquette Madness has come and gone. The season is so close, we can taste it. Marquette fans know who we will battle but might not know anything about our future opponents. To remedy this, Paint Touches is taking an in depth look at each of Marquette’s opponents, both conference and non-conference, to see what we [...]

Source: Preseason Previews: Maine

[brewcity77]

Bump.

Maine at this point is probably exceeding expectations a bit, coming in at 2-4. That's largely because freshmen Devine Eke and Issac Vann have been quality additions. Eke put up 29/8 in their last outing against Army while Vann averaged 15.5/6.5 in their first four games before an injury sidelined him the past two. Not sure if he'll be back for this one.

Of the remaining cupcakes, Maine looks like the best opponent. They play very fast (7th highest tempo in the country) so tomorrow will likely be an up-and-down affair. The Black Bears, despite their mediocre record, are top-15 in the country at three-point defense, so it will be interesting to see if Marquette can keep up their shooting from the Grambling game. On the offensive end, Vann is shooting 63.6% from beyond the arc, so if he plays, MU will have to cover him tightly from deep.

Hopefully this one will at least be entertaining. I think Marquette wins going away and flirts with triple-digits again. Marquette 97-74.

[naginiF]

Bump.

Maine at this point is probably exceeding expectations a bit, coming in at 2-4. That's largely because freshmen Devine Eke and Issac Vann have been quality additions. Eke put up 29/8 in their last outing against Army while Vann averaged 15.5/6.5 in their first four games before an injury sidelined him the past two. Not sure if he'll be back for this one.

Of the remaining cupcakes, Maine looks like the best opponent. They play very fast (7th highest tempo in the country) so tomorrow will likely be an up-and-down affair. The Black Bears, despite their mediocre record, are top-15 in the country at three-point defense, so it will be interesting to see if Marquette can keep up their shooting from the Grambling game. On the offensive end, Vann is shooting 63.6% from beyond the arc, so if he plays, MU will have to cover him tightly from deep.

Hopefully this one will at least be entertaining. I think Marquette wins going away and flirts with triple-digits again. Marquette 97-74.

This has been mentioned a couple of times and i think this will be exciting by nature and add a 'turnover tracker' aspect.  Assuming fast pace = higher turnover rate and turnovers are an area we would like to see improve.....What do you think is a reasonable number of turnovers is to show improvement?  Maybe season average since the average is front loaded (going from memory)?

[brewcity77]

This has been mentioned a couple of times and i think this will be exciting by nature and add a 'turnover tracker' aspect.  Assuming fast pace = higher turnover rate and turnovers are an area we would like to see improve.....What do you think is a reasonable number of turnovers is to show improvement?  Maybe season average since the average is front loaded (going from memory)?

To answer this in as simple of terms possible, this will likely be a high possession game, so anything 16 or under should be considered a success. But since I'm often verbose, I'll also give you a longer form answer.

Maine plays blisteringly fast, but we play pretty fast too. We're averaging 71.9 possessions per game (#97 in the nation), Maine is averaging 77.3 (#7). Also making this speedy free-for-all interesting is while we suck at turnovers (21.3% of possessions end in a turnover, 16 per game) Maine is turning it over even more (21.9% of possessions, 18 per game).

Two teams that play fast and turn it over a lot, we could easily see an 80 possession, 20+ turnovers on each side type affair. My focus will always be on the tempo free numbers. If this game is insanely quick and we end up with 87 possessions (like Maine had v LIU-Brooklyn) but turn it over 17 times, that's above our average in terms of sheer numbers but below our average in terms of percentage. Maine isn't great at taking the ball away, so part of their blistering pace is just that they give it away repeatedly allowing the other team additional possessions.

With our team having three freshmen (Henry, Carter, Cheatham) and a sophomore (Duane) as the primary ball handlers, we probably should have expected a lot of turnovers. My hope is to see us go from being a 21% team to around a 19% team. That would still put us in the bottom third or so of the country, but it'd be better than being where we're at. Against our cupcakes, we should really be under 20%. The last two games were 20.8% and 20.0%. Moving in the right direction, but not good enough, in my opinion.

[mug644]

To answer this in as simple of terms possible, this will likely be a high possession game, so anything 16 or under should be considered a success. But since I'm often verbose, I'll also give you a longer form answer.

Maine plays blisteringly fast, but we play pretty fast too. We're averaging 71.9 possessions per game (#97 in the nation), Maine is averaging 77.3 (#7). Also making this speedy free-for-all interesting is while we suck at turnovers (21.3% of possessions end in a turnover, 16 per game) Maine is turning it over even more (21.9% of possessions, 18 per game).

Two teams that play fast and turn it over a lot, we could easily see an 80 possession, 20+ turnovers on each side type affair. My focus will always be on the tempo free numbers. If this game is insanely quick and we end up with 87 possessions (like Maine had v LIU-Brooklyn) but turn it over 17 times, that's above our average in terms of sheer numbers but below our average in terms of percentage. Maine isn't great at taking the ball away, so part of their blistering pace is just that they give it away repeatedly allowing the other team additional possessions.

With our team having three freshmen (Henry, Carter, Cheatham) and a sophomore (Duane) as the primary ball handlers, we probably should have expected a lot of turnovers. My hope is to see us go from being a 21% team to around a 19% team. That would still put us in the bottom third or so of the country, but it'd be better than being where we're at. Against our cupcakes, we should really be under 20%. The last two games were 20.8% and 20.0%. Moving in the right direction, but not good enough, in my opinion.

I wonder if the fact that we played pretty well in a half court game against lowly Grambling will lead Wojo to try to slow the game a bit, instead of just running with Maine.

Or, maybe Wojo will start off with some pressure defense, to see if we can create turnovers. If we get beat easily, then that gives a clue of things he needs to work on with the team.