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Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

Marquette’s offense warms up as temperature outside cools

Redshirt sophomore center Chris Otule battles inside against Centenary. Photo courtesy of Marquette Images.

Welcome back, Darius Johnson-Odom.

The junior guard entered the season with big expectations.  Last season, Johnson-Odom was the team’s third-leading scorer with 13.7 points per game and the second-leading three-point shooter at 47.4 percent.

Much of the same production was expected this year, but things did not go as planned to start the season. Prior to Marquette’s 102-77 victory over Mississippi Valley State on Dec. 21, Johnson-Odom was averaging 13.0 points — right on line with his numbers last season — but was shooting just 26 percent from the three-point line.

Johnson-Odom finished that game with 19 points, including 5-of-7 on three-point field goals. Since that game Johnson-Odom has averaged 18.9 points and shot 47.6 percent from the three-point line.

The Dec. 29 77-76 loss at Vanderbilt demonstrated how far Johnson-Odom had come since the beginning of the season, when coach Buzz Williams chose not to start him for the first two games of the year.

With 4.1 seconds left and Marquette trailing by one, Johnson-Odom was entrusted with the ball—a position reserved for senior Jimmy Butler last season.  Johnson-Odom failed to convert on the opportunity, but giving him the ball showed the renewed confidence Williams has in him.

Now Johnson-Odom is the team’s leading scorer at 15.7 per game and has raised his three-point field goal percentage to 35.9 percent.  In five conference games, he is posting 19.8 points per game and shooting 41.9 percent from beyond the arc.

Johnson-Odom said the key to his turnaround has been his teammates’ ability to create good looks for him and his continued work on his jumper.

Another player coming on strong has been junior forward Jae Crowder.  In Big East play he is averaging 16 points and 6.8 rebounds per game.  Crowder had a career-high 29 points in a 79-74 victory over West Virginia on Jan. 1.

Crowder said one reason for his early Big East success has been his ability to get comfortable.

“That’s a big thing, how fast I got adjusted, comfortable with everybody, the program and the guys,” Crowder said.  “How fast I got adjusted is a big key for me.”

Crowder, Johnson-Odom, Butler and point guard Dwight Buycks have come together to balance the offense in Marquette’s first five Big East games.  All four are averaging more than 12 points in conference play.

Buycks exploded against Notre Dame with a career-high 21 points and made all five of his three-pointers in a 79-57 victory on Jan. 10.  The team followed his lead and shot a season-best 70 percent, 12-of-17, from the three-point line.

Entering this season, the thought was that this group of players couldn’t match last year’s shooting statistics, something Buycks said put a chip on everyone’s shoulder.

“We don’t like to hear negative things, so we put extra time in the  gym shooting,” Buycks said.  “We know we can shoot, so we just got to make shots.”

Williams said the team cannot continually make three-pointers at that high of a mark.

“Can we shoot the ball better than we did earlier in the year? Yes,” Williams said.  “Can we continue to shoot the ball the way we have? I don’t know.  I would say that the truth is probably somewhere in between.

“If you could steal a scouting report from an opponent, I don’t know that ‘shooter’ would ever be in the report or the evaluation of any of our guys.”

The team may not continue its hot shooting, but it should have a balanced offensive attack with the two seniors and two juniors at the helm.

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