Marquette's 2-point defense

[Jay Bee]

Been very busy with non-basketball things and just starting to hop back into the flow... a topic I've explored a little but not nearly enough is MU's 2-point defense last season (and how we should think about it next year)...

For the year, MU was at just 46.4%, good for #120 per KenPom.

However, in conference play the Warriors held opponents to just 44.0% - only Georgetown was better.

One-armed looked had a nice 8% block rate... but can we even REPEAT this in 2015-16? Or can we improve?! How big of a factor were Derrick and Juan? If the defense got opponents to shoot a lot of 2pt jumpshots, can we carry that over to this season and even improve upon it?

As I look at the defense, DR% can be improved upon substantially.. turnovers and FTrate will be challenges... eFG% is what counts most. 3FG% def we can/should come out looking better.. but may need to maintain or be close on 2FG% in conference play to markedly improve the defense overall.. will we? How did we keep things at 44.0% last year?

[tower912]

The zone.   Juan and Derrick were fundamentally sound on defense.    Luke was a presence under the basket.  Duane is decent on defense.   With more size underneath, I expect more challenges at the 3 pt line, since there will be a large defender waiting when the offensive player puts it on the floor.