Kendall Marshall: Why I Hate You

When the grief is over, beef is over/
I'll be fly when Easter's over

The All-ACC teams came out last week, and in what should not have nearly been a surprise to any Maryland fan who has paid attention to the ACC, Terrell Stoglin did not make the first team, despite leading the league in scoring by three and a half points. In fact, he wasn't even the top vote getter among those who didn't make first team - more on that in a minute. Perhaps only moderately more surprising was the fact that no one really said two words about this snub. Don't get me wrong, I think there were valid cases to be made against Stoglin's inclusion. He was by far the best scorer in the league, but he didn't do a lot of the other things that players need to do well, and he played for a bad team, albeit something that was only tangentially related to his play at any given time. In any event, he would have been a more than valid selection, and if the name on the jersey were different but the performance the same, he'd have been there.

However what gets me is that there was an uproar over the picks. Commentators were absolutely up in arms that Kendall Marshall didn't make the first team. The Andy Katzes and Seth Davises of the world seemed aghast. This guy is a first team All-America, of course he should have been first team all conference! So is this a travesty? Nope. Let's turn it down a few thousands notches, kids.

Kendall Marshall is, first of all, a spectacular passer. Make no mistake that as much as I hate him, he makes some superlative passes. The trouble is that once you get past that, there isn't a whole lot there. Marshall, despite a few big games in the past two or three weeks, has yet to show himself to be a capable scorer at just 7.4 points a game. The typical rejoinder to this is that he's a "true" point guard (whatever that means), that he doesn't need to score, and that he doesn't try to show what he can do because his job is to pass. While it's certainly true that he does have a role as a facillitator, that's not the whole story.

Marshall takes just 10.8% of his team's shots while on the court - basically half of what an average player would take. Of the ACC's 73 regular (approx. 16 minutes a game) players, only Duke's Tyler Thornton ranks lower. It's one thing not to shoot very much and to be a pass first distributor, but it's quite another to shoot so infrequently as to take yourself out of the equation almost entirely against a good defensive team. And more to the point, Marshall isn't very effective on those occasions when he does shoot, hitting under 50% of his two point shots, about 33% from three (with less than one make a game), and only 71% from the stripe. Those numbers aren't awful, but considering how rarely he does shoot, that ought to mean he's picking his shots and taking the very highest percentage shots that he can get.

Then there's the matter of defense. Kendall Marshall pretty simply doesn't play much of it. You only have to watch the games to see that he has trouble matching up against more skilled guards. This is another area where Marshall's team helps him out. He has the luxury of having an outstanding shot blocking front court to erase mistakes when guards get past him and attack the rim, which is not exactly a rare occurence. Look at when Marshall matched up with Faust yesterday. Nick didn't have his best shooting performance of the season at 4-13, but he was able to get past his man and into the lane almost at will when he had the favorable matchup with Marshall. He does get a decent amount of steals, but that's not nearly enough to overcome the fact that he's the weak link defensively in his backcourt and on the team.

Marshall is also a poor rebounder, finishing 67/73 in defensive rebounding and 72/73 in offensive rebounding. Some of this is because of his position, but his numbers do not compare favorably to recent UNC point guards like Lawson and Felton neither of whom were "big" guards.

So what you're left with are the assists, and those numbers are great, but even then, they need context. Marshall plays on an ultra-talent offensive team that runs up and down the court, giving him copious opportunities to drop dimes. No doubt, if the offense is a car, Marshall is a great driver, but he also got handed the keys to a Ferrari, not a Ford Escort. His big men are also outstanding at running the floor and beating their man, giving the opportunity for Marshall to find them for an easy one past the defense if he keeps his head up. Not every PG can make those passes or have that vision, but even the good ones will be able to do it pretty often.

Anyway, Marshall doesn't really lead the country in assists despite all of that. He's second behind Scott Machado. If you look at Assist percentage, the percentage of his team's baskets a player records an assist on while on the floor, Marshall falls even further to sixth in the country. Still spectacular, but hardly quite as record setting when you look at a number that accounts more fully for Marshall playing 38 minutes a game these days with outstanding teammates in an up and down the court offense.

I've been watching the ACC for a long time, and Marshall is a very good point guard. So was Ed Cota. But does anyone really think that Marshall is a overall player than recent point guards like Steve Blake, Raymond Felton, Ty Lawson, Greivis Vasquez, Chris Paul, Stephon Marbury, Nolan Smith, or Jay Williams, not to mention dozens of others? Not being in that category doesn't make Marshall a bad player, but it does mean he's not an elite one.

Now I may be a little biased. I'll admit that I don't like Marshall. Really the problem is that I don't like seeing his fat, ugly father on my television screen. His fat, ugly father had the audacity to tell a tall tale about how Gary failed to give Marshall the time of day when he was a recruit despite it being clear to anyone with an interest in recruiting that Marshall's fat, ugly father would never in a million years have considered sending him to Maryland, regardless of the staff's level of effort or whether he was good enough to go to UNC and play the point.

I'll be interested to see what happens next year if Marshall comes back without the services of Barnes, Henson, and Zeller. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, but I doubt it.

A Half Dozen Events of Varying Uncertainty

To ring in the new season, and celebrate FEAST WEEK, we bring you the Coors Light SIX PACK O QUESTIONS, in leiu of an outright season preview. But it's not questions, it's more like topic/question hybrids. These responses will appear here with the original copy storied in a hermetically sealed mayonaisse jar on Funk & Wagnall's front porch. Without further whimsy, away we go.

1. How Will Terrell Stoggins Adapt - It's no secret early on that there has been something of an adjustment period between the Turge and Stogs (see Parker over Stogs in Sunday's starting five). It's also no secret that this team - both now and at least for next year - will only go so far as Stoglin takes them. There's no doubt that he's going to be a great scorer for the Terps. Only five men - Smith, Branch, Lucas, Rhodes, and King - scored more points for the Terps as freshmen. The real question is whether he can move beyond that and be a great leader. The Turge has moved him off the ball in favor of Nick Faust, himself better suited to play on the wing, but Stoglin will only become an elite player if he proves capable of running the offense again, this time in a way that maximizes his teammates opportunities as well as his own.

2. Ashton "The X-Factor" Pankey - New nickname! I have to admit that I never really envisioned Pankey doing much here. He signed as a fairly lightly regarded recruit, picking the Terps over Houston, then injured himself and missed his last year of high school ball. He played one minute last year in the season opener against Seattle and injured himself again, earning a redshirt season. It's never good when you have a big man two years removed from competitive play and a growing history of lower body injuries. So far, however, Pankey has been outstanding, having 13 and 8 against UNC-Wilmington in his de-facto debut.. Granted it was one game against a weaker opponent, but even the very solid Dino Gregory rarely did that, to say nothing of your Braxton Duprees or Steve Goins. A good performance in Puerto Rico would be very interesting indeed.

3. How will this team play? - After 20 years at Maryland and 30 as a head coach, it was pretty easy to know what you'd get with Gary as your coach. A fast pace, the flex offense, man to man defense, lots of pressure, and eight or nine man rotation, and a postseason berth. Now in comes Mark Turgeon who will make us acclimate ourselves to a whole new style. His teams at both Wichita State and Texas A&M played a slower, grind it out pace, and while Turge has said he would play differently if he had the personnell, his track record doesn't really indicate that. I'm not so sure a slower style is better for the long term, but on the other hand, even if it isn't, perhaps the team will be better able to use a zone defense, even if only as an occasional gimmick to throw at teams that can't shoot. Of course we won't really know much about this until next season because given the lack of scholarship bodies available, a more deliberate pace is almost an absolute necessity.

4. Recruiting - Lefty once said that recruiting is like shaving - you need to do it every day or else you look like a bum. There's no doubt that this staff adheres to that adage, but the results so far have been mixed. Not bad at all, mind you, but given the overall deficiencies in the program right now, there's no doubt that they have more to do. Jake Layman and Shaq Cleare are an awesome start, but the team needs another guard, preferably a ballhandler, and another big or two, depending on the development of the current roster. 2012 has a few possibilities, but this year's juniors are where to look for the next earth shattering committment. If either the Harrisons or Nate Britt were to commit during the winter, or perhaps a similar name not currently off the radar, it would give the program a huge boost both on the court in a few years, but also immediately in the buzz-susceptible world of recruiting.

5. Fan Support - Fans surely realize that this will be a tough year, but hopefully that doesn't deter them from coming out and supporting THEIR team as Mark Turgeon tries to build the progam up once again. Early results seem less than promising, and of course results could dictate how attendance looks in the new year. If the team can remain competitive early on and get a boost from the returns of Alex Len and MVPe', Comcast could be difficult in February. On the other hand, a dismal showing in Puerto Rico followed by a loss to, say, Florida International (already having nightmares about this one) could mean a sea of open red seats in the Castle.

6. Can this team go .500 or better - It's been a long time since Maryland finished with a sub .500 overall record, but this year it will be a challenge to extend that streak. Given the givens, even my somewhat optimistic predictions only cranked out a 15-15 record for the regular season. There's also the equally long streak of winning at least 7 games in the ACC, which probably goes hand in hand with the former goal this season. Neither "streak" is really much to be proud of or care about, but it will be an interesting benchmark nonetheless.

Happy watching, Terps fans!