Dive into the Heart of Mizzou Athletics

The freshman has dramatically reshaped his physique and worked on his passing reads, but his strength on defensive and the glass might earn steady minutes.

Over the weeks leading up to the season, this series will dive deep into the players we see making a push for time in the rotation for the 2024-2025 Missouri basketball squad. The pieces read like a birds-eye scouting report. They skew more toward the offensive end of the court for two reasons. First, a player’s offensive metrics are more reliable than defensive data and less team-dependent. Second, it’s considerably easier to describe a player’s qualities with more well-known offensive statistics. As always, we encourage interaction from our readers. Please drop us a comment or find me on Twitter @DataMizzou.

The film credits are given to Matt Harris. Matt has provided all of the film used in this series, and the team has plenty more video and analysis on every player that can be found on https://rockm.plus.

The Player

If you’re unaware, we’ve rigorously documented Peyton Marshall’s development through his commitment to Missouri and his senior campaign at Overtime Elite.

So, if you’re looking for a genuinely granular analysis of the big man’s game, there’s some background reading available.

The abridged version: Marshall, who grew up in St. Louis before moving to Atlanta, was an early priority for MU, which hosted him for an unofficial visit in the fall of 2022. Yet Auburn, which has built a pipeline into Marshall’s grassroots program, scored a pledge as the year wound down. Yet Bruce Pearl kept pursuing Flory Bidunga, an effort that might have prompted Marshall to reconsider his options. In April 2023, Marshall decommitted. Four months later, he picked MU.

Once the recruiting drama wound down, Marshall joined OTE and promptly reshaped his body. Earlier this year, he’d only shed eight pounds, but diligently working with the program’s nutritionist and strength staff had changed the distribution of that mass on his frame. After a summer in MU’s program, he’s dropped another 28 pounds. The Tigers’ updated roster recently listed Marshall at 7 feet and 300 pounds.

We’ll get to on-court matters shortly, but Marshall’s sweat equity is telling: He started working to prepare himself for life in the SEC long before he dropped bags in Columbia. Should that focus carry over to attacking skill development, there’s certainly reason for optimism about what Marshall can offer.

While Marshall’s quality fluctuated in the eyes of evaluators, the layover at OTE was helpful in several ways.

For starters, Marshall gained early exposure to life as a rotational player. Early on, he played for Cold Hearts, splitting time with Ole Miss commit John Bol. Then, he moved to RWE, which was without future Georgia big man Somto Cyril as he battled an injury. When Cyril returned in February, he and Marshall platooned at center.

Next, RWE coach Corey Frazier, another St. Louis native, steadily integrated tasks that would also be included in Marshall’s portfolio at Mizzou, like reading high and low split cuts on offense and playing in different pick-and-roll coverages. As we’ll see, the results could be mixed, but there’s no ideal time for growing pains, either.

Marshall got a jumpstart on foundational aspects of adjusting to high-major life: boosting stamina, adjusting to life as a role player, and digesting the first principles of MU’s scheme. And after this spring’s exit of Jordan Butler, that head start might only be more valuable if Marshall’s pressed into longer stretches of floor time.

The Numbers

Adam Hagy/Overtime Elite

When Marshall still suited up at Kell High School, his formula for success was rudimentary: catch the ball on the right block, pound out a dribble and finish at the rim. If necessary, he might drop step to the baseline. And if an opponent sent a double team, Marshall made simple passing reads out of the post to hit open teammates.

Yet life as a low-block operator hasn’t been so straightforward for a while.

When Marshall ventured out on the Adidas-backed 3SSB circuit, the scout was out, and the defenders trying to front or harass him were of a higher caliber. Last June, a trip to the Adidas Eurocamp exposed Marshall to some of the top rising talent abroad. Then, he capped his summer with a few days at Adidas’ All-American Camp. And finally, there was the move to OTE.

For the better part of 18 months, Marshall has routinely faced high-end prospects. That’s optimal for improvement, but it also dampens a stat line. Once Marshall’s run ended on the grassroots circuit, he settled into life as a player earning roughly 16 minutes per game with a usage rate of around 20 percent. This dosage of PT also happens to be toward the top end of the normal range for freshmen of his caliber.

Without a doubt, Marshall’s freshman season will expose him to another jump in talent. Still, for him and us, it’s handy that he’s already experienced a reasonable proxy to life in a high-major rotation.

Marshall’s bread and butter remains burying defenders on the block, but he’s steadily diversified how he dispenses punishment. One solution was simple: go to the other side of the lane. Working on the left block, Marshall could still vacate space with his shoulder, but slimming down means he’s lighter on his feet — and not solely reliant on pivoting to the baseline as a counter.

Yet RWE’s roster included a slew of high-major prospects, including five-star wing Karter Knox. The offense did not revolve around Marshall, and he often spent the early portion of a possession as a screener or reader. That meant rolling or cutting from the perimeter to the post. The tactics weren’t always cutting-edge. For example, Marshall might set a down screen for a guard, creating a mismatch he could exploit if a teammate fed him a quick entry pass.

The more notable evolution was RWE’s use of Marshall as a connector and reader in the kinds of actions and sets that are hallmarks of Gates’ system: delay, point, and chin. Those added responsibilities supplemented Marshall’s typical reads from the post.

What ties these actions together is how they invert the floor, lift the defense off the baseline, and task a big man with deciphering action in front of them. Those off-ball actions can be a thumbprint distinct to each program. In Columbia, the Tigers use split cuts, and there could be up to a dozen options. By contrast, the menu at OTE was more limited, and Marshall’s processing speed lagged somewhat.

While at OTE, Marshall’s assist rate was modest (9.39%), and he finished the season with a 0.4 assist-to-turnover ratio. We wouldn’t be surprised if Marshall’s decision-making remained boggy during freshman season. Again, the reads have multiplied, and bigger, stronger, and wiser defenders will harass Marshall.

The number we’ll keep monitoring is Marshall’s turnover rate. At OTE, he gave the ball away on nearly a quarter of his possessions. That has to come down. But we also need to monitor what kind of turnovers Marshall racks up. Is he plowing through defenders while forcing a post-up? Is he getting stripped going up for a putback? Or are his passes to teammates a split-second late or a bit off-target? If it’s the third variety, we can accept that as a byproduct of trying to create for others.

On the other end, Marshall’s no stranger to doing work early, winning the battle for post position and leaning on an opposing big. But his time at OTE’s facility in downtown Atlanta was about growing his comfort zone. That meant leaving the safe harbor of the lane and playing in space.

Over the winter, Frazier was adamant with me that he wasn’t going to hide Marshall as the backline anchor. When Marshall sat more than two steps below a pick-and-roll, that positioning was dictated by the scouting report to counter craftier guards or take away passing angles from screeners rolling toward the rim.

When we saw Marshall in mid-February, the baseline for RWE was sitting him in drop coverage. There were instances where Marshall blitzed a dribbler, but again, those were wrinkles dictated by opposing personnel and only in specific actions. He looked agile enough to stay attached to a driver’s hip and make finishing a tricky task, while his wingspan lets him have a cushion and contest pull-ups.

His agility improved to where he can reliably stay attached to a guard’s hip and complicate finishing angles. His length also allows him to concede some ground and contest some pick-and-pops.

And even on nights when he’s not guarding a traditional low-post operator, Marshall’s presence can be a deterrent as a timely help defender.

But again, Marshall could go about his work cleaner. He averaged 7.9 fouls per 40 minutes last season, a rate that would even make Jeremiah Tilmon blush. So, it’s not surprising that Marshall doesn’t cause disruption cleanly. For example, he committed two fouls for every block or steal he tallied. An efficient defender would have a balanced ledger.

It’s not hard to see negative downstream consequences. MU’s base coverage demands bigs show hard, pivot quickly and recover. Marshall’s feet are better than you think, but it’s not hard to envision some opponents targeting him and seeing if they can’t run up a foul count that relegates him to the bench.

This is why MU’s decision to pursue Gray looks heady. Over three seasons at South Carolina, he averaged 13.5 minutes per game against teams that finished in the top 100 of KenPom. Between him and Marshall, the Tigers could deploy brawnier post players for 30 minutes per game.

The Role

Dale Zanine/Overtime Elite

Perhaps the biggest question in Peyton Marshall’s role this year is not whether Mizzou should be able to use a true post on the floor but whether they will choose to do so.

As it pertains to Marshall, he and Gray are locked into one positional slot. There’s no sliding up the positional ladder, and under Gates, MU’s never used a twin-towers approach. These two imposing men represent the entirety of Mizzou’s true-post rotation. Viewing Marshall and Gray as a binary choice risks missing the plot. Using this frame is better: Is this a situation where they play well enough for their position to exist?

It’s fair to say Mizzou has lacked interior players with Gray and Marshall’s profiles. However, there’s still some helpful context that comes with looking at how much playing time Gates has dispensed to traditional post players. Among those who’ve passed through Columbia, here’s how their minutes have shaken out:

• Mohamed Diarra: 8.2 MPG
• Jordan Butler: 10 MPG
• Connor Vanover: 9.6 MPG
• Mabor Majak: 4.9 MPG

It’s not hard to claim that perhaps Marshall — and Gray — will be better players than the ones who came before. But it’s also worth pointing out that if they’re not, Gates hasn’t hesitated to go a different direction.

Looking outside the program, a dozen freshmen arrived at high-major programs with similar composite rankings in the past four years. Their average minute rate was 24.5% — just under 10 minutes a game. However, that has been boosted greatly by two first-year standouts in Cameron Corhen and Mouhamed Gueye. If you were to remove those two players from the sample, the rate drops to 15.6% — 6 minutes per contest.

With the uncertainty of how the battle for post supremacy between Marshall and Gray will shake out, coupled with the question of how often a center is utilized, I find that minutes projection to be a solid approximation, especially when that player is competing with 15 bodies for minutes. Marshall will see regular time in the back of the rotation, but it may well depend on the matchup whether it ever goes over a few minutes per half.

No matter, the staff has done well injecting size and physical brawn into this group for future years, and none better epitomizes that than Marshall. His minutes will go a long way in shaping the best-case scenario for the future of Mizzou’s program.

PPP: Points Per Possession

Min %: This is simply the percentage of minutes played by a given player.

Usage %: A measure of personal possessions used while player is on the court. This includes making a shot, missing a shot coupled with a defensive rebound and a turnover.

eFG%: Same as traditional FG% with the added bonus of 3-point shots given 50% more weight to account for additional point.

OR%: The percentage of possible offensive rebounds a player gets.

DR%: The percentage of possible defensive rebounds a player gets.

AST%: Assists divided by field goals made by player’s teammates while on the court.

TO%: The percentage of personal possessions a player uses on turnovers.

FTR%: A rate which measures a player’s ability to get to the free throw line.

FT%: Free Throw shooting percentage.

2PT%: 2-point field goal percentage.

3PT% 3-point field goal percentage.