It looks like the junior wing is going to be in the starting lineup this year. Will he make the jump that we thought was coming last year?
The 2024-25 college basketball season is right around the corner, so let’s dive into the Marquette men’s basketball roster and take a look at what to expect from each player this season. Going forward in these Player Previews, we’ll be going in this order: The two true freshmen in alphabetical order by last name — skipping past Josh Clark who is not expected to play this season — then the redshirt freshman, then the returning players in ascending order of average minutes played last season.
We’re going to organize our thoughts about the upcoming season as it relates to each player into categories, as we always do:
- Reasonable Expectations
- Why You Should Get Excited
- Potential Pitfalls
With that out of the way, we move along to a part-time starter from last season that’s hopefully healthy enough to pay off on his promise from a year ago…….
Chase Ross
Junior — #2 — Guard — 6’5” — 210 lbs. — Dallas, Texas
We got to see 10 games of Chase Ross: Marquette Starter last season. Four of those games were because Stevie Mitchell missed time in December, and the remaining six came when Tyler Kolek was out of the lineup with his oblique injury to end the regular season.
Chase Ross as a starter in December: 7.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 2.0 steals, 29% three-point shooting in 26 minutes per night.
Chase Ross as a starter in March: 4.7 points, 2.8 rebounds, 1.3 steals, 27% three-point shooting in 27 minutes per night.
It’s important to remember that March Chase Ross was himself coming back from missing five straight games and essentially a sixth after a shoulder injury two minutes after checking into MU’s 78-75 loss to Seton Hall. On top of that, he was dealing with an ongoing nagging leg issue as well, so it’s not terribly surprising that his March numbers are a little bit worse than his December numbers.
All of this is to say that a combination of injuries added a bit of a damper to a season that, if we’re being honest, didn’t quite blow up the way that Marquette fans kind of thought that it would a year ago. At the end of the day, Ross’ Per 40 Minutes numbers were about the same between his freshman and his sophomore season, although we do have to tip our caps to Ross boosting his three-point shooting numbers. 32% on less than two tries a game as a freshman is fine, 36% on more than two tries per game as a sophomore is fine by me.
But that’s all in the past now for Ross. Now, with Tyler Kolek subbing in late in blowouts for the New York Knicks, there’s a starting spot available, and based on what we saw a year ago, that spot goes to Ross in 2024-25.
Reasonable Expectations
So if we know what we saw from Chase Ross: Marquette Starter a year ago, that gives us a solid spot to start to think about what to reasonably expect from him this season. Quite honestly: Marquette’s probably going to need more from him, and definitely much better shooting when he’s a starter. Maybe the minutes are okay, maybe that gives guys like Tre Norman, Zaide Lowery, and Damarius Owens a pathway to meaningful minutes, but the production’s going to have to boost up a bit. Without Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro around to make the offense hum, Marquette’s going to have to muck it up a bit on both ends, and that certainly seems like a situation where Ross and his #107 steal rate in the country per KenPom.com last season can make a big impact.
How much more should we expect from Ross? It may be minutes dependent, but I honestly think that the BartTorvik.com algorithm is undershooting what Ross has to be on this team. The computer is spitting out 7.3 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game in about 26 minutes per night. That’s about what Ross was doing when he subbed in for Stevie Mitchell last December, but that was when he was playing with Kolek and Ighodaro. It’s one thing to fit into Mitchell’s role in the lineup, it’s another to play alongside Mitchell and be asked to do more than that.
Maybe that is what his ceiling on this team is given the other components around him, but I feel like not only will need more from Ross, but he’s going to do more than that, too.
Why You Should Get Excited
Last year, I thought there was a chance that Ross could jump past Stevie Mitchell into the starting lineup. There was enough similarity between the two in their per-40-minute numbers from 2022-23 that we could raise the point of which guy is better in the lineup for the Golden Eagles.
Now it seems that those two guys are going to play a pretty decent amount of minutes together. Let me ask you a question:
Do you like dunks?
Last year, Stevie Mitchell was #29 in the country in steal rate according to KenPom.com. That’s, uh, pretty good. What do you think he can accomplish when Chase Ross and his also very good steal rate is on the floor with him? What can Ross accomplish when he’s playing a lot with Mitchell?
How many “OH MY GOD CHASE ROSS IN TRANSITION!” dunks are we going to get out of this arrangement? How much of Marquette’s Goon Mentality is going to get these two guys to ratchet up their intensity when it comes to stacking up deflections? How miserable is it going to be to play in an opposing backcourt against these two?
Oh, and by the way? Chase Ross shot nearly 39% from long range in Big East play last season. What if a few more minutes per game gets him a little more comfortable with his shot and Ross can mix that skill along with an ability to get to the rim on the regular? It’s not completely crazy to think that Ross could end up in 2023-24 Kam Jones’ role as a scorer while Jones himself ends up in 2023-24 Tyler Kolek’s role as a creator and playmaker.
Plus the defense? Sounds terrifying, to be honest.
Potential Pitfalls
How much do you want to be worried about Chase Ross’ shoulder?
Here he is at the early August open practice with K-tape on the shoulder.
Marquette University
Here he is at practice in early October with a brace on the shoulder.
Marquette University
And here he is at practice in late October with what appears to be a compression sleeve going all the way up into his jersey.
Marquette University
Look, if there was something wrong with Ross, he wouldn’t be practicing or playing or whatever word you want to use there. Maybe this is all therapeutic more than anything else, maybe it’s for safety’s sake because Ross doesn’t need surgery at all and he’s just gotta heal up one day at a time and sitting him over this is silly.
But the Chase Ross we saw after he came back from his shoulder injury was definitely not the same kind of Chase Ross that we saw earlier in the season. If Ross is limited in some way, if he’s a liiiiiiiiittle bit hesitant about exacerbating his issues, how much defensive intensity does he lose? Last year, it seemed like it was kind of a lot based on what the on/off numbers tell us. If Ross isn’t quite getting stops the way that this year’s version of Marquette is going to need to get stops, that might mean that the coaching staff turns in another direction to find someone who can get it done.