Friday's Poll: Markus Howard

[Gato78]

2nd Team AA (1st Team in some iterations). No brainer for me.

[Phantom Warrior]

I'd give Markus an A minus. That may seem strange since he did earn some 1st team and some 2nd team A-A honors and was BE POY.

That may also seem to be a ludicrous grade since Markus just had the highest single-season scoring (ppg) in MU history - 25.0 ppg.

But there are two reasons I did not give him a straight A.

One is that we need to look at both offense and defense. After all, he is on defense essentially half his time on the court.

Markus' defense definitely improved this season. Plus he did work hard on D. But quite a few MU opponents took advantage of his lack of height and lack of lateral quickness. I'll be generous and give him a B minus for his D this season. Hell, I'll be super-generous and give him a straight B.

On offense, he had some unbelievable games; I call them "A-plus games." I think he had 10 games when he scored at least 30 points.

But when he was not hitting, he could be terrible. In three games against Seton Hall he was 1 of 15 2 of 12, and 7 of 20 for a total of 10 of 47 (21.3%). In our first two games against St. John's he was 7 of 32 (21.9%)

Over our last 8 games, basically one fourth of the season, he made only 23 of 77 treys (30.0%). No, he was not 100% physically, but the reality is 30% from behind the arc is pretty bad. In our 6 losses at the end of the season, he was 18 of 65 on treys (27.7%).

Injured or not, the bottom line is he played in those games and did not shoot well. In fact, his shooting hurt us more than helped us.

The other issue, of course, was turnovers. Whether he should have been our point guard or not is a moot point. He was our point guard, and he simply turned the ball over way too often. In conference and post-season play he had at least 5 turnovers in 10 different games including 2 games with 6 turnovers, 2 with 7 turnovers, 1 with 8 turnovers, and 1 with 9 turnovers.

The bottom line for me is despite being BE POY and earning 1st and 2nd team A-A honors, Markus could have played much better in numerous games than he did - games in which he shot very poorly or games in which he turned the ball over way too much...or games in which he did both.

If he returns next year, and I think he will, I think he can play better than he did this past year, even if he does not have games of 45, 45, or 53 points.

Therefore, my grade for Markus is an A minus, not an A, despite all those honors.

[Nukem2]

Give him a solid A. The points Phantom notes drops him from an A+. Still, those awards Gato notes.