There’s a lot of questions for Cara Consuegra’s first season, but these are the three biggest ones.
QUESTION #1: What counts as success for this team?
Let’s start with this: The Big East coaches collectively decided that Marquette Golden Eagles are expected to finish 10th in the league this season. The only team behind them in the preseason poll was an Xavier team that 1) was voted last by every single coach and 2) hasn’t won a Big East game since 2022. So, in that way, success for Marquette would be just finishing better than 10th. Using last season as a comparison, that means finishing better than 4-14 in the league.
We’ve got other metrics to think about. Last year, the #10 team in the Big East in the NET was Butler, landing at #132 at the end of the season. Just to make it a clear definitive thing as there’s not much difference between consecutive spots in the NET: If Marquette finishes better than #125 there, then they’re coming out ahead.
But Marquette might actually be better than 10th in the league already anyway. BartTorvik.com debuted preseason rankings for women’s basketball this fall, and over there, Marquette starts the year at #102. Sure, maybe that’s not that much further ahead of #132 when you get down to it, but the ranking isn’t the point here. The fact that Marquette is 7th amongst Big East teams, just one ranking spot ahead of #103 Providence, means that maybe we can shoot for a lot better than just “better than 10th.”
What if we come at the question as “what’s a good season for Cara Consuegra?” She has a 225-169 career record as head coach at Charlotte, which is a winning percentage of .571. Marquette has 30 games guaranteed to them this season: 11 non-conference games, 18 Big East regular season games, 1 Big East tournament game. 18 or more wins this season would be better than Consuegra’s career winning percentage and it would tie for her sixth best win total in 14 seasons of running a Division 1 squad.
At the end of the day, you know what the answer is? Being able to say “ah, yes, clear positive step forward for the program.” I think it’s too much to expect a third straight NCAA tournament appearance at this point of the season, both because there’s just too many questions and also because that’s only happened twice in program history before now. But if we can look up in April and say “yep, I see where Consuegra is going here, and I like what’s going on,” then that’s definitely going to be a successful season.
If she figures out a way into the NCAA tournament? Runaway freight train of a successful season, no doubt about it.
QUESTION #2: Who’s going to lead this team this year?
Of course, that means we have to ask what we mean by “leading” the team. If we’re just asking who’s going to be on the top of the scoring chart, well, facts are facts: No one on this year’s roster has ever averaged more than five points per game for Marquette. Six players are brand new, six were here last season, led by 4.7 points per game from Skylar Forbes. Only two women have ever averaged 10 points per game at all in Division 1: Bridget Utberg with 12.5 per game as a freshman for a Central Michigan team that went 6-23 in 2022-23, and Jaidynn Mason with 14.0 per game as a sophomore last year for a Southern Illinois team that went 11-20. Neither of those women were in what I presume is Cara Consuegra’s projected starting five, which is the five she sent out against the practice players in the open scrimmage. With all of that in mind, the answer to the question is 1) still a mystery to us and 2) probably someone slightly unexpected.
Leadership isn’t all putting points or even rebounds or assists onto the stat sheet, though. Emotional/spiritual leadership is a core component of having a successful team, and there’s different ways of being a leader, too. Who is the player who leads by being the most consistently hardworking player in practice? Who’s the player that will not back down from challenging a teammate to give that extra 1% when the game is on the line? Is this where Olivia Porter can step up because she’s already familiar with playing for Consuegra after last year in Charlotte?
QUESTION #3: What does Marquette Basketball look like under Cara Consuegra’s direction?
When Carolyn Kieger was leading the program to newfound heights, it was a fast moving, get up and down the floor, we can do more things than you can type of basketball. They were a killer offensive efficiency team that made up for any flaws they had on the defensive end by merely being a threat every time down on the other end.
Megan Duffy’s tenure featured a much slower version of basketball, never ranking better than #158 in the country in pace according to Her Hoop Stats. Getting the ball inside was of importance to the squad, and cleaning the glass on both ends of the floor was a critical component of winning. The focus was on getting stops, and if things worked on on the offensive end, then that’s just fine, too.
Cara Consuegra was in charge of the Charlotte program since the 2011-12 season, so every year of her time there is in the Her Hoop Stats archive. Her 49ers teams ranked anywhere between #24 and #218 in HHS’ offensive metric. On the defensive end, that spectrum was as high as #52 in 2012-13 and as low as #293 in 2022-23. Their pace ranking varied between #35 and #320. Sometimes they were good at rebounding, sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes they were good at keeping track of the ball, sometimes they weren’t.
Look, I didn’t watch a lot any of Charlotte basketball when Consuegra was running the show. I can’t tell you if all of that ranking variation is because of Consuegra electing to take her tactics where she felt the team needed her to take them or if they’re because of a disciplined adherence to a system no matter who was on the roster. All I can say is that she doesn’t seem to have a consistent profile that we can point to as something to expect this year. There’s upsides and downsides to that, and we’re really not going to be able to get a handle on What Exactly Are We Looking At Here until we actually get games on the board.