It’s safe to say the 2023-24 college basketball season did not go as expected for Dan D’Antoni and his staff. Marshall came into the year with some confidence, even with losing their top 3 players from the year prior. The Herd started off the season with a revengeful win over Queens before struggling throughout the rest of non-conference play. To be fair, the schedule this year was tougher than previous year, but a 5-8 record going into conference play was less than ideal. That was okay though because Marshall had all their goals still in front of them and with them playing their best ball heading January, Marshall had the chance to rewrite the script of their season.
A Strong Start in the Conference; A Disastrous Finish
The Herd started out conference play with a 4-0 record including a win over last year’s champion, Louisiana. The defense was flying around and the offense was actually complimenting their defense. They continued a decent level of play and raced out to a 7-4 conference record through their first 11 games. Then they started to sputter. Marshall proceeded to lose their final seven league games and fall from a top four seed all the way down to the 10th seed going into the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. During that stretch, the Herd couldn’t put the ball through the net. They were blown out in five of those contests and failed to score 60 points in three of them. Just a brutal stretch to end the season.
As the tournament began, there came a sense of optimism for the Herd. This is a program which was built to get hot in March. If they could just string together a few good performances, who knows what could happen. Luckily for them, Kam Curfman and Kevon Voyles erupted in the first round of the tournament and combined for 60 as Marshall took down the Panthers of Georgia State. In the quarterfinal matchup, the Herd ran into the class of the conference and were clearly outmatched against a very tough JMU team. And just like that the season was over and Marshall finished with a record of 13-20
Too Much to Replace?
Looking back at this season, the simplistic rationale for the struggles was because they couldn’t replace the presence of Taevion Kinsey, Andy Taylor, and Micah Handlogten. They weren’t able to recreate the production of those guys and the team clearly lacked the talent it has had in previous years. Marshall was a really good team last year on both ends of the floor. They were 69th in Adjusted Offensive Efficiency (110.0) and 104th in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency (101.3), while being ranked 83rd in KenPom. In 2024 they were ranked 261st in AdjO (101.9), 184th in AdjD (107.2), and 239th in KenPom.
With Kinsey and Taylor last season, the Herd had two elite level shot creators for their conference. The gravity of those guys made the jobs of Curfman, Obinna, Micah, etc. a lot easier. Losing both left a void in the primary playmaker position and the man responsible for creating those shots became Curfman, who was primarily an off ball spot up shooter the year prior. This was a tall task for Curfman, who saw his percentage of possession as the primary ball handler rise 7% and the increase in on-ball usage led to his field goal percentage and offense rating plummeting. He was sprung into a role that he wasn’t equipped to play in. The staff tried to ease his load by giving lead guard duties to Jacob Conner. Conner has shown some tools to be able to handle the ball as a lanky 6”9 guard, but those were just flashes. He too, was unready to be thrusted into that role. Kevon Voyles was brought in to provide a scoring spark and for the most part he did that. There were nights he struggled to find any rhythm, as a lot of microwave scorers do, but towards the end of the season, it felt like he started to find his groove within the offense. I really wish he had another year here.
Post Play was Strong for The Herd
The front court was probably the strength of the team this year. Nate Martin was the most consistent player night in and night out and by looking at advanced metrics, he was the best player on this team. Martin led the team in offensive rating, effective field goal percentage, rebounding rate, and block rate. He was a great presence down low and a sneaky good playmaking hub in the high post or nail area. If he could fine tune some of his post game, he could be a First Team Sun Belt level player next season. Obinna was incredible for a lot of the year. He was averaging a career high, while shooting over 35% from deep and had one of the top free throw rates in the country. Then all of a sudden that went away. He really struggled to find his outside shot and lost all of his touch around the basket. This was one of the main reasons Marshall struggled down the stretch. They lost a lot of his production.
Rounding out the rotation were role players with up and down seasons. Wyatt Fricks was solid in his role and I do think there is more potential to tap in there. He’s a solid bench piece. Ryan Nutter was someone who I didn’t know what to expect from coming into the year. He proved to be a really nice pick up. He has a lot to improve offensively and is a long way from being a true lead guard, but the energy and effort he plays with translated. He was the absolute pest defensively. Cam Crawford is the last guy I wanted to talk about. He had an up and down year with being benched for a good portion of the season, but he showed some flashes to me. When he played, he showed an ability to be a smooth athlete and scorer, but oftentimes played too fast and too selfishly. It would have been nice to see him stay for another year to get more comfortable in the system.
Shooting and Defense: Two Areas That Hurt
Schematically, Marshall tried to play how they usually play. Fast pace (45th in tempo), a lot of drag screens, and a one through five switching scheme on defense. To me, the identity of the Marshall system just didn’t fit this team too well. They didn’t have the prolific scorers to play quick off the drags or enough playmaking to generate good offense. Solely based on the eye test, the Herd did not get nearly as many clean looks offensively. It showed as their effective field goal percentage was down almost 6% over the previous year (52.6% to 46.8%). Defensively, teams would mismatch hunt and the inability to adjust or switch to anything other than a complete switching scheme really cost the team. It was hard to continue to ask Nate Martin to guard out on the perimeter and Curfman to battle down low against the opponent’s bigs. This created mismatches that Marshall just couldn’t handle. I would have loved to see Martin and Obinna play more drop coverage because they had good size and length in the interior. Not to mention we had some good defensive guards and wings who could fight over screen if asked.
A Roster Overhaul for Next Season?
Overall, it was clearly a rough year for the program, but all hope is not lost. Marshall has the offseason to re-evaluate the roster and play from this year and hopefully they can target the right personnel and changes to get this team back on track. Just two years ago the Herd finished 12-21 and found themselves in a similar position as right now and they were able to bounce back with a 24-8 season and a top four seed in the Sun Belt. Make no mistake about it, the fire under Coach D’Antoni’s seat is burning, but the beauty in today’s age of college basketball is that you can flip a roster in just one offseason. Look for the Herd to make some changes this offseason.
Good article on the past season! Not sure I have confidence in the current regime to “flip” the roster. There were rumblings in the past that it took 2 years to learn MUs current system. Just don’t have that kind of time with today’s NCAA rules (NIL, transfer portal, etc.).
“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.” – HG Wells