School: Marquette
Year: Senior
Height/Weight: 5’11, 180 lbs
Strengths:
Markus Howard is a baller and we can say that confidently. He is one of the best in the nation at scoring the rock and that’s the most appealing part of his game. He does such an excellent job of creating his own shot and barely needs any space to get it off.
Howard does it all when creating the shot, you name it. He’ll use the step-back, in an out dribble move, and so many other go-tos to get himself separation from the defender.
Markus Howard has such a smooth offensive game and heats up like a microwave.
He makes some pretty ridiculous shots as well when attacking the rim which includes a nice floater that is surely in his bag. The finishing around the rim is very good from Markus given his size. He takes intelligent angles to get to the rim and has such a nice touch once he gets it up on the rim.
Markus is one of the toughest players to stay in front of in college basketball. He is super shifty and can find the open spaces to weave through the defense with ease.
Lastly, he is a player you can just always seem to trust in key situations. When it’s late game action, you want Markus Howard to have the ball, and you want him to be the one to get the shot up.
Weaknesses:
There are a couple main weaknesses that are apparent when watching Markus play. The first one is his defense, specifically his defensive fundamentals. Markus Howard is a huge liability in the paint due to his lack of size. The opposition loves throwing him into a pick and roll and forcing Howard to switch onto the big. Then once he switches, he seems like he doesn’t really know what to do:
Marquette shouldn’t be willing to switch as much and they should force Howard to fight over that screen and stay with his guy. As soon as Markus Howard has to switch, he is doomed and seems just confused and lost.
Another weakness on that side of the ball is the fact that Howard becomes a ball watcher too often:
Originally he does a good job of keeping an eye on his man, but as he shades towards the top of the key, Markus Howard loses track of him. Now, thankfully, this didn’t hurt Marquette in any way, but it will hurt his team at the next level with better surrounding talent.
Markus Howard also isn’t a terrific play-maker. He lacks the confidence to be an elite passer. He always seems to second guess himself and it leads to poor decision making. It’ll be extremely hard for him to excel at the next level with poor decision making skills given that he is too small to be any other position and must be one to be a solid point in the NBA.
Future Outlook:
Markus Howard can shoot the ball with some of the best in the game. He has the pure offensive talent to surely be considered a draft pick. The problem is his defense and the fact that he can’t really make a positive impact in a game as of right now if his shot isn’t falling. To be fair…that rarely occurs.
Either way, Markus Howard will definitely be playing basketball after college and wherever he ends up, he’ll be putting up some crazy scoring numbers. Will it be in the NBA though? Carsen Edwards is a good comparison for Howard in terms of what a player who gets buckets on a regular can do. If Markus can show an NBA team that he can score in bunches against bigger defenders, don’t be surprised if a team in the back end of the 2nd round takes a flyer on him.
Other Media:
Which Big East prospects will be selected in the 2020 NBA Draft?
