New Marquette boss Steve Wojciechowski is now a winning head coach. The longtime Duke assistant turned Marquette head coach kicked off his tenure with a 79-63 win over University of Tennessee-Martin on the back of strong performances from JaJuan Johnson, Juan Anderson, Matt Carlino and Deonte Burton.
Marquette entered this season with only nine available players and only one player standing above 6'7" in Steve Taylor, Jr. Nevertheless, they put in an assured performance tonight to beat Tennessee-Martin and it can only serve as a confidence builder heading into next week's difficult trip to Ohio State.
There are serious concerns about Marquette's ability to defend inside, and they looked weak inside all night. This is something that will likely be exploited next week in Columbus and a week later at the Orlando Classic and the following month when they host Wisconsin. Tonight, it often looked like they might push farther out near the perimeter in an effort to keep the ball from entering inside. Nonetheless, Wojciechowski must be counting down the days until December 14th when 6'11" Indiana transfer Luke Fischer is eligible.
Marquette tonight didn't look thoroughly convincing, but there were strong performances across the board. In his first look since tranferring from BYU, Carlino looked very good. While certainly looking like someone playing their first game in new colors, apart from his two turnovers and a couple of misplaced passes he appeared to know how Wojciechowski's offense is intended to run. In addition, Carlino poured in 11 points and added seven assists.
In addition to Carlino, captain Anderson looked good. In his first three years at Marquette, he has never looked much of a scorer. He scored 16 points while grabbing seven rebounds, and while this was not Big East competition he looked impressive.
However, the best performance of the night didn't come from either Carlino or Anderson. In fact, it came from the new no. 23 JaJuan Johnson. Johnson finished the night with 20 points on 6-9 shooting, and looked a bonafide scorer. It is far too soon to jump to conclusions, and he showed flashes similar to this last season, but Johnson could be the scorer this team needs.
There are positives to be taken for Tennessee-Martin from this game as well. These are the sorts of games that often produce victories for the power conference team by 30 or 40 points, but the Skyhawks held their own. Marquette never truly pulled away, and guard Alex Anderson was very impressive when coming off the bench.
While it wasn't a fantastic performance, the bottom line for Marquette is that they are off to a winning start and shot 10-23 as a team from beyond the arc. If they can consistently shoot like that, they have a legitimate chance of competing this season.