Efficient offense has No. 16 Marquette chasing league title

MILWAUKEE (AP) — As they walk along the hallwayleading up to the men’s basketball office each day, Marquette’splayers can stare at the walls and see photographs celebrating thegreatest teams in program history.

The last team featured is the squad that won a share of the BigEast title and reached a regional final in 2013. Marquette hasn’twon an NCAA Tournament game since, which helps explain why thisseries of photos ends with a white space including nothing but aMarquette logo.

“The purpose of that is, ‘Hey, that can be our team if we’rewilling to do all the things that go into being a special team,’ “Marquette coach Shaka Smart said.

This year’s Marquette team is eager to fill that spot.

Picked to finish ninth out of 11 Big East teams in a preseasonpoll of the league’s coaches, Marquette (16-5, 8-2 Big East) istied for second and just a game behind No. 13 Xavier (17-4, 9-1).The 16th-ranked Golden Eagles visit DePaul (9-12, 3-7) onSaturday.

“If you’re basing your motivation on where other people pick youor what other people say about you, then it’s going to continue tobe up and down,” Smart said. “Now we are still playing againstthose very same coaches that picked us ninth. For guys that want touse that, fine. It’s the very same coaches that didn’t pick one guyon our team to the preseason all-Big East team. If you want to usethat as motivation, fine.

“But to me, what’s more important is to have the drive inside ofyou that’s, regardless of circumstances, based on relationships youhave with teammates, the way that you feel about your program, theway that you feel about the ownership that you take over your teamand program, and then just going out there and doing what it takesto win.”

Smart built his reputation on the “Havoc” defense that enabledVCU to press its way to a Final Four appearance in 2011. HisMarquette squad is winning with a ruthlessly effective offense.

Marquette leads the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency, ametric measured by college basketball stats guru Ken Pomeroy thatessentially translates to points scored per 100 possessions whenadjusted for the level of competition. The Golden Eagles are makinga remarkable 60.6% of their two-point shot attempts.

The Golden Eagles share the ball so well that five of them arescoring at least 9.7 points per game: Kam Jones (16.4),Olivier-Maxence Prosper (12.2), Tyler Kolek (10.1) and David Joplin(9.7).

“We have genuine love for each other, genuine relationships,”Jones said. “We love to see each other succeed. There’s no jealousywithin the team. That just brings us closer together and helps usplay better as a team.”

Marquette also boasts one of the nation’s top distributors inKolek. In his second season at Marquette, the George Mason transferranks third among all Division I players in assists per game (7.9)and second in assist-turnover ratio (3.44).

“He’s the best quarterback in college basketball,” UConn coachDan Hurley said after his team lost 82-76 at Marquette on Jan.12.

Kolek wants to make sure the Golden Eagles maintain theirmomentum and learn from last season.

One year ago, Marquette was 16-7 after beating No. 12 Villanovaon Feb. 2, capping a six-game stretch in which it went 5-1 whilefacing five ranked teams. The Golden Eagles went 3-6 the rest ofthe way and got trounced 95-63 by eventual runner-up North Carolinain the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

“We kind of lost our edge,” Kolek recalled.

Marquette’s tradition of late-season slides preceded Smart’sarrival. Marquette has posted a combined 17-24 post-January recordover the last four seasons and hasn’t gone above .500 after Januarysince 2017-18.

When he took over before the 2021-22 season, Smart did someredecorating in hopes it might produce more team success. The wallsnear the office had honored Marquette’s individual record holdersbefore Smart decided instead to salute top teams.

“What we want to have portrayed for our guys to see every daywhen they walk in the office, we want them to see winning,” Smartsaid. “We want them to see relationships. We want them to seegrowth.”

Now they’re intent on making themselves one of those teams. Theygot even more motivation last week when Marquette honored theschool’s 2003 Final Four team during halftime of a victory overProvidence.

“We want to be that team that gets honored the same way they areand remembered like they are,” Kolek said.