The Carlino Effect

Marquette struggled to score all season long, especially from the backcourt. Todd Mayo led the Golden Eagles in scoring from the guard position averaging 11.3 points per game, and Jake Thomas was the next highest scoring guard with 7.9 points per game.

Needless to say, with Jake Thomas graduating, Marquette could use some help in the backcourt.

Enter Matt Carlino.

The 6-foot-2-inch guard averaged 13.7 points per game and added 4.3 assists and 3.4 rebounds per contest for the BYU Cougars. Brigham Young averaged 84.2 points per game, which was good enough for third in the nation and the Cougar backcourt and Carlino had a lot to do with that.

Carlino was the third leading scorer on the team behind fellow guards Tyler Haws and Kyle Collinsworth. And he has the capability to go off.

Carlino had eight games in which he scored at least 20 points including a 30-point breakout performance against Portland where Carlino shot 11-for-16 from the field including 8-for-13 from behind the arc.

However, consistency seemed to be a problem for Carlino during conference play.

Carlino got off to a hot start contributing with 22 points in a win against Weber State and followed that up with a 26 point performance against future Sweet 16 team, Stanford, in which Carlino got to the line 12 times.

But Carlino only shot 38.5 percent from the field this season and had games where he basically disappeared from the scoring column.

The bright spot for Carlino is even in games where he does not fill it up, he does not disappear from the game.

A perfect example was a game this season against North Texas.  Carlino shot a meager 2-for-11 from the field and ended up with only five points.  But, Carlino dished out 11 assists and collected 10 rebounds en route to a 97-67 victory.

What Lies Ahead

With the emergence of Todd Mayo at the end of the year, the Marquette backcourt looks very promising for next season.

Mayo proved to be a formidable scorer, as he totaled 67 points in the last three games of the year and took over the role of the go-to-guy.

So for Mayo, Carlino seems like a perfect fit.  He’s another scorer in the backcourt to help take some attention away, but Carlino is an excellent passer as he ranked in the top 100 in the country in assist rate last season.

The biggest improvement comes from the fact that Marquette will have a scoring point guard after Derrick Wilson struggled mightily to score the basketball averaging only 5.0 points per game.

The switch should allow Wilson to concentrate more on his defensive prowess and not be forced to score, but the Golden Eagles won’t lose much on the defensive end when Carlino is in.

MU will see an improvement at the guard position, but with Sandy Cohen being the only recruit coming to Milwaukee this season, Wojo will have a lot of work to do to get this team back into the NCAA Tournament.