There’s two seniors on the roster taking a run up the list right now.
By now, you should be more than familiar with our series of regularly updating leaderboards for various Marquette Golden Eagles sports accomplishments. Keep checking back to that link in the previous sentence for our charts as the seasons continue to churn through history and MU’s various teams continue to create new memories and accomplishments.
We’re going to talk about made three-point field goals by Marquette seniors.
Yes, plural, because we have to keep an eye on both Kam Jones and David Joplin. In fact, right now, on December 22nd, David Joplin is leading Marquette with 28 made three-pointers on the season. Kam Jones is in third place on the team in the moment with 22 triples this season. Neither of those numbers are good enough for the top 10 or even the top 12 senior seasons in MU history, but hey, we’re not even at the midway point of the season yet, not quite.
Last year, Kam Jones had 95 three-pointers, and he had 100 as a sophomore. Joplin hasn’t been quite that productive, but he also wasn’t quite being asked to do as much scoring as he is this season. Joplin’s career high for threes in a season came last year with 72 after recording 67 as a sophomore.
A new career best for Joplin this season would send him into the top 10, easily getting past Travis Diener and his 68 senior year three-pointers in eighth place. A new career best from Jones would make him #4 all time, and heck, it wouldn’t take that much to get there, as there’s a big gap between Jerel McNeal and 86 in fourth and Markus Howard in third with 121 triples.
Now, with that said, Joplin is on pace for 69 made threes this season, and Jones is tracking towards only 54. Part of that is because neither man is close to their shooting percentages from a year ago. Part of that is also because both guys are shooting a lot more two-pointers than they were last season. Joplin’s actually shooting more of both by way of being asked to do more scoring this season, but his three-point attempt rate is down from 59.5% to 58.1% right now. It’s not a lot, but it is enough to have a little bit of a chilling effect on his ability to contribute to a climb up the three-point chart.
So it seems we’re in for a bit of drama as this season goes along in this department. Both men are clearly capable of getting into a rhythm of shooting threes as Big East play winds along through March, and if that happens, they could suddenly go shooting up the top 12. There’s only 23 makes separating 11th place from 4th place, after all.
As of Wednesday, January 16, Markus Howard has connected from long range 66 times in his senior season at Marquette. That has already thrust him into the top 10 senior seasons in program history, pushing him past Lazar Hayward and Brian Wardle, who used to be tied for 10th place with 65.
Here’s what the chart looks like after Marquette’s December 21st game against Xavier.