With the 2023-24 season long since in the books, let’s take a few moments to look back at the performance of each member of YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles this year. While we’re at it, we’ll also take a look back at our player previews and see how our preseason prognostications stack up with how things actually played out. We’ll run through the roster in order of total minutes played going from lowest to highest, and today we turn our attention to the biggest problem for ever MU opponent’s best guard…..
Stevie Mitchell
Junior – #4 – Guard – 6’3” – 195 lbs. – Reading, Pennsylvania
Stevie Mitchell Traditional Stats
| Games | Min | FGM | FGA | FG% | 3PTM | 3PA | 3P% | FTM | FTA | FT% | OReb | DReb | Reb | Ast | Stl | Blk | Fouls | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Games | Min | FGM | FGA | FG% | 3PTM | 3PA | 3P% | FTM | FTA | FT% | OReb | DReb | Reb | Ast | Stl | Blk | Fouls | Pts |
| 33 | 26.3 | 3.4 | 6.6 | 51.6% | 0.5 | 2.1 | 26.5% | 1.5 | 1.9 | 76.6% | 1.4 | 2.7 | 4.1 | 0.8 | 1.9 | 0.2 | 2.0 | 8.8 |
Stevie Mitchell Fancy Stats
| ORtg | %Poss | %Shots | eFG% | TS% | OR% | DR% | ARate | TORate | Blk% | Stl% | FC/40 | FD/40 | FTRate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORtg | %Poss | %Shots | eFG% | TS% | OR% | DR% | ARate | TORate | Blk% | Stl% | FC/40 | FD/40 | FTRate |
| 117.6*** | 15.8% | 16.4% | 55.8% | 58.8% | 6.4% | 11.8% | 5.4% | 10.9%*** | 0.7% | 41.%** | 3.0 | 2.7 | 29.5% |
** — Notes a top 30 national ranking per KenPom.com
*** — Notes a top 300 national ranking per KenPom.com
WHAT WE SAID:
Reasonable Expectations
With Marquette bringing back everyone but Olivier-Maxence Prosper from the rotation that won the Big East regular season and tournament titles, it’s hard to see Mitchell’s specific role changing all that much for 2023-24. Given the mere size difference between Prosper and Mitchell — Mitchell is tied as MU’s shortest starter at 6’3” and second shortest rotation player next to Sean Jones — he’s not going to benefit all that much from the Golden Eagles reorganizing without Prosper around. Those minutes and those responsibilities are going to go elsewhere on the roster.
So, with that in mind, the reasonable expectation is more of the same from Mitchell. 7.1 points, 2.9 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 1.7 steals is what he averaged a year ago. If that’s the season long stat line that we see from Mitchell by the time April rolls around, then only crazy people are going to be upset about what Stevie did for the Golden Eagles this season. Mix in that eye for coming up with a steal — his 4.1% steal rate was best on the team, beating out Chase Ross’ 3.9% — and a continuation of his improvement at not turning the ball over, and it’s going to be a good year for Mitchell. Take a look at the T-Rank projection for the team, and you’ll see that “just keep being you, Stevie” is the order of the day: 8.2 points, 3.4 rebounds, 1.5 assists is the guideline according to the algorithm.
Why You Should Get Excited
One of the big reasons why you might have been high on Mitchell’s potential going from freshman year to sophomore year was his shooting. In limited minutes off the bench, Mitchell shot 35% from long range on 20 attempts for the season and a very nice 4-for-10 in Big East regular season games. Marquette didn’t ask him to do much in that regard, not with the guys elsewhere on the roster, so that was a very good sign.
Last year was not a payoff on those good signs. Mitchell shot 30% from behind the arc, 31.4% against Big East foes, and a very bad 27% and 24% against what KenPom.com labels as top 50 and top 100 opponents respectively.
But the other shooter, the freshman year shooter, was still in there. In MU’s 13 games against sub-100 opponents, Mitchell went 10-for-24 from long range, which is 41.7%. Marquette was a great shooting team last season, but only in terms of effective field goal percentage. Their stellar two-point shooting helped carry the day a little bit for a middle-ish of the road three-point shooting performance where they ranked just #101 in the country.
Mitchell’s not going to be an offensive star for this team, not in terms of head coach Shaka Smart relying on Mitchell to get them buckets when they need it. But, can he be a “get open and be ready” guy? 100%. With the number of offensive options on this roster, Mitchell is going to get left alone as his defender helps off of him. It’s just going to happen. If he can make use of those opportunities, and he’s shown the ability to do exactly that, then that’s going to make MU even more dangerous.
Potential Pitfalls
There’s a version of 2023-24 Marquette that 1) is incredibly successful but 2) does not include a big role for Stevie Mitchell. Does T-Rank project an increase in minutes for him from last year to this year? Sure. But the fact of the matter is that I’ve written four player previews already that have talked about the logjam of backcourt options that are on the MU roster this season. If the two freshmen AND the two sophomores all show an ability to impact the game, then they’re going to need minutes.
Those minutes are probably coming from Stevie Mitchell’s account. They are probably not coming from Tyler Kolek and Kam Jones. Those guys are almost assuredly going to play as much as they want and/or as much as they can and/or as much as the coaching staff sees fit to let them play. If there’s 120 minutes of action across three backcourt/wing positions…. and Kolek and Jones get 60 of them…… well, you can see how Mitchell turns into an interchangeable piece on the roster more than a guy that the Golden Eagles are relying on for a specific need. There’s nothing wrong with that, Mitchell can still have a great junior year in that situation.
But if Mitchell can’t hit those open threes, if he’s more of the 30% shooter that we saw last season? Or if the oopsies with the ball from freshman year make their return? Then the coaching staff has to make the hard calls about which guys are giving Marquette the best chance to win ball games.
Stevie Mitchell was put on the basketball court to play defense. Maybe not from birth, but it’s clear that he’s the guy that Marquette leans on in the backcourt when Shaka Smart needs to throw cold water on an opposing guard or wing.
At least, that’s what we thought.
Turns out, that’s maybe not the case.
Fact of the matter is that Marquette’s defense was essentially the same this past season no matter whether or not Mitchell was on the floor. Hoop Explorer has Marquette giving up 95.1 points per 100 possessions against top 200 opposition with Mitchell playing in 2023-24…. and 94.6 per 100 without him. That’s, uh, better with Mitchell on the bench, ever so slightly.
That’s, uh, unexpected.
Now, yes, that’s slightly distorted due to Mitchell missing four games with a hamstring issue in December. But here’s the other thing about that: Up until Stevie missed those four games….. his minutes were down from last season. He was averaging just 21 minutes a night after averaging 23.4 per contest as a sophomore. That’s not because Shaka Smart was mixing it up in buy games, either. 21 minutes against Illinois, 17 minutes against UCLA, 20 against Purdue and Texas.
You know what’s really weird about all of this? It looks like pretty much exactly what I feared would happen is what happened. Mitchell couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn to start the year, and that hurt his playing time. He missed all nine of his long range attempts in Marquette’s first four games and that turned into a 3-for-23 run from behind the three-point line. That sent him along to a 26.5% shooting percentage for the year, which, y’know, is bad.
But because Chase Ross, Sean Jones, and Tyler Kolek got hurt themselves in successive order as the season went along, Marquette needed backcourt minutes, and that meant more playing time for Stevie Mitchell. After he returned from his injury time off, Mitchell averaged 29 minutes per game, partially because someone had to play. Even though he started wearing a shoulder brace/support/sleeve/whatever as the season went along (see the picture at the top) and then stopped, and then brought it back, Mitchell kept showing up and kept doing his job.
Part of that meant hitting shots, and no, I’m not joking. We’re all going to glance at Stevie Mitchell’s junior year and say “well, he couldn’t hit the threes.” Except in the 18 Big East games he played. In those games, he was a terror, connecting 13 times in 32 attempts for a 40.6% shooting percentage. Mitchell was also straight fire on two-point attempts, and that kept going all season long. I don’t have Stevie Mitchell’s two-point shooting on his statlines up top, so we’re going to segment that out here so it stands alone:
For the full season, Stevie Mitchell shot 63.1% on two-point attempts. That ranks, according to KenPom.com, #93 in the country.
For 18 games of Big East play, Stevie Mitchell shot 60.6% on twos, which was #8 in the entire Big East.
All 6’3” of him.
I don’t have a chart of it, but I suspect that a lot of those were offensive rebound putbacks. It became a regular feature of Marquette’s offense to see, all of a sudden, space open up under the rim, the ball clonk off the rim, right to Mitchell just standing there minding his business, completely unattended. He would put it back up and in relatively unaffected, and boom, two easy points for Stevie and the Golden Eagles. This happened over and over again.
Remember that Hoop Explorer on/off data? Yeah. Stevie was a net positive on offense for Marquette this season. MU scored 121.1 points per possession with him on the floor, 114.4 without him. Part of that is likely because Mitchell found away to get better in turnover rate from sophomore year. He managed to cut his turnover rate from 11.2% to 10.9%, and while that ended up with a ranking jump through no fault of Stevie’s, 10.9% is a better number.
Also likely helping Marquette’s offensive efficency: Stevie Mitchell’s steals. 1.9 per game, 4.1% of possessions, that’s #29 in the country in rate. Stevie Mitchell possesses some of the most feared hands in the country and the most feared hands in the Big East. His 4.3% steal rate was the best steal rate in the entire Big East. How does that help Marquette’s offensive efficiency? Because steals are live ball turnovers, and if you thought Marquette likes to play Seven Seconds Or Less Offense under normal circumstances, a live ball turnover is just pouring gasoline on that attitude. When Stevie Mitchell comes up with a steal, teammates are flying down the court for a quick bucket, and it’s hard to get more efficient that a layup or a dunk.
BEST GAME
I tend to start this category by finding each guy’s best scoring game for the season. It’s hard to argue that this system doesn’t work for Stevie Mitchell. 16 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks, 3 steals. When was that? Marquette’s first round NCAA tournament game against Western Kentucky. Monster game in a gigantic spot, and Mitchell was critical late, too. He subbed into that game with Marquette up three with 12:23 to play, snagged a steal after a Tyler Kolek and-1 put Marquette up 6, got an and-1 stickback — remember I said he kept doing that? — to make it a 9 point game with 6 minutes left, and got into the paint to make it a 15 point game with 2:30 left.
There is also Mitchell’s lone KenPom.com MVP of the season: The overtime win over Villanova in the Big East tournament. 15 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 41 minutes played. He wasn’t quite as critical to the Golden Eagles in the second half and overtime there, in fact, he barely affected the game on the stat sheet in overtime. That was a big game in a big spot where Marquette kiiiiiiiiiinda needed to prove something without Tyler Kolek in the lineup. I think I’m going with the WKU game, though.
SEASON GRADE
At the end of the day, 2023-24 was pretty much what we wanted from Stevie Mitchell. His scoring picked up a little, his rebounding picked up a lot, and for 18 games against conference foes, Mitchell was a nigh unstoppable shooter when the ball kicked out to his waiting arms. He wasn’t asked to carry an offensive load, but he shouldered the burden that Marquette needed him to. His hamstring was probably never quite right after he missed time, and he barely let the shoulder problem slow him down. It wasn’t a front to back massive success though, as evidenced by Mitchell’s minutes drop early in the year and his shooting struggles at the same time. It was also exactly what we expected from him and not much more than that, so we can’t go completely overboard when assigning a grade here. But that means I can give him an 8 and not even think twice about it.