{"id":167422,"date":"2025-11-21T07:00:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=167422"},"modified":"2025-11-20T22:51:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T03:51:15","slug":"does-marquette-need-to-hit-the-panic-button","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/11\/21\/does-marquette-need-to-hit-the-panic-button\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Marquette Need to Hit the Panic Button?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is it time to change the system? Does Shaka Smart need to hit the transfer portal<\/a>? Is Marquette’s season already over?<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, these are all fair questions to ask. The Golden Eagles stand at 3-3 this season, with all three losses coming to power conference opponents. Tucker DeVries<\/a> and the Hoosiers dropped 100 points gave Marquette its first loss. Then Maryland, which lost to Georgetown, rallied late for a seven-point win. And now, most recently, the Golden Eagles fell in overtime to Dayton, a mid-major darling, in overtime.<\/p>\n

That’s three losses, six games into the season. Marquette<\/a> didn’t hit that number until the 18th game last season or the 12th game the year before. This is a team that is predicted to finish fifth in the Big East. If one of the conference’s yearly top dogs is already struggling, the Big East may be in for a rough year.<\/a><\/p>\n

Does Marquette Need to Hit the Panic Button?<\/h2>\n

Shooting woes<\/h3>\n

Here are a few shot figures from the Maryland game: Zaide Lowery<\/a>, 6-19; Ben Gold<\/a>, 6-15; and Royce Parham<\/a>, 1-8. Marquette shot 36.8% as a team. Against Dayton, Chase Ross<\/a> went 5-14 and Nigel James Jr<\/a>. shot 5-16. In past years, Marquette had enough talent in its top six to make up for when someone had an off night. Right now, the guys who the Golden Eagles were counting on are not clicking at the same time and it’s leading to some long scoring droughts.<\/p>\n

That’s not even to mention Caedin Hamilton<\/a>, who started all six games and averaged six points a content.<\/p>\n

As good as Ross has been this season, Marquette needs to find that secondary scoring option that can help shoulder the scoring burden on a consistent basis.<\/p>\n

Lack of intensity and focus<\/h3>\n

When you think of Shaka Smart, you think of teams that play tough, chaotic defense, and are well prepared. Against Dayton,<\/a> Marquette lacked both. Even though the Golden Eagles forced 23 turnovers, the Flyers shot over 50% from the field and 41% from behind the arc.<\/p>\n

The team had an opportunity to win the game at the buzzer, but instead of throwing up a shot, Marquette passed the ball around until the horn sounded.<\/p>\n

This is not what you want to see from a team that’s one main advantage is that they should have chemistry on the court and already have spent multiple years in the program. If Marquette continues to struggle shooting, it needs a full-4o minutes of full effort on defense to make up for it.<\/p>\n

A little bad luck and hope for Marquette?<\/h3>\n

If there is any reason to not quit on the Golden Eagles just yet, it’s because of their schedule<\/a>. Before going into Big East play, Marquette has a pair of games against No. 23 Wisconsin and No. 1 Purdue. Now does losing to a pair of Big 10 teams, who weren’t expected to be great, inspire confidence? No, but winning one of those games gives them a quality win. Beating Purdue would certainly change the feel of the season.<\/p>\n

KenPom isn’t perfect, but the metrics may suggest Marquette might be the victim of some bad luck. The team is top-10<\/a> in both defensive and offensive ratings, which suggests it shouldn’t be a terrible team. But on the luck metric the team ranks 335th in the country. Unfortunately, the number can be used for only so long before “bad luck” is just reality. A tough schedule may not cost Marquette a tournament spot, but it’s may be a reality check it is not among the elite.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is it time to change the system? Does Shaka Smart need to hit the transfer portal? Is Marquette’s season already over? Believe it or not, these are all fair questions to ask. The Golden Eagles stand at 3-3 this season, with all three losses coming to power conference opponents. Tucker DeVries and the Hoosiers dropped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5651,"featured_media":167453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,773],"tags":[1451],"class_list":["post-167422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-college-basketball","tag-marquette-golden-eagles"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5651"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167422"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167454,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167422\/revisions\/167454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}