Marquette hopes grad transfer Joseph Chartouny will help defense
Joseph Chartouny seems to have found the perfect fit with Marquette for his final season of college basketball.
The 6-foot-3 guard was looking to challenge himself after playing three seasons at Fordham. With a degree in business administration in hand, he was eligible to transfer without sitting out a season and sought out a school in a bigger conference.
“It was really a decision for me just to see how good and how competitive I could be,” Chartouny said at the Al McGuire Center this week.
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The Golden Eagles had a roster that cried out for a player like Chartouny, especially on the defensive end.
Last season’s MU team had one of the nation’s top offenses, but playing a backcourt with two sub-6 foot guards in sophomore Markus Howard and senior Andrew Rowsey often led to mismatches on the other end.
Chartouny gives the Golden Eagles a different look.
“I think he’s a smart player,” MU coach Steve Wojciechowski said. “I think he anticipates very well defensively where he’s thinking a play ahead. He also has very long arms and good size. So he’s able to get hands on a lot of balls for deflections, a lot of balls for steals. He just has a knack for being a pest defensively.”
Those defensive abilities were developed in hockey-obsessed Montreal, where instead Chartouny took to hoops and soccer.
“I think his anticipation skills are high level,” said Mike Chmielewski, who coached Chartouny in high school at Collège Jean-De-Brébeuf. “That’s probably due to him being a very good goalkeeper in soccer. “
Former Fordham coach Tom Pecora fell in love with Chartouny’s intangibles after seeing him play on a trip through Canada.
“I think he’s the perfect example of people getting caught up in style and not substance,” Pecora said. “He wasn’t a crazy athlete. He wasn’t blowing people away by flying up and down the floor. But I just liked his basketball IQ. ...
“He just anticipates very well. He gets into passing lanes defensively. He plays defensive angles.”
Pecora never coached Chartouny, getting fired by the Rams a few months after the guard committed. Pecora is now an assistant at Quinnipiac.
Chartouny stuck with the Rams and was an instant starter under head coach Jeff Neubauer.
The guard also got international experience playing with the Lebanon national team, including a stint this summer in FIBA World Cup qualifiers.
Chartouny’s parents moved from Lebanon to Canada in 1990, and he often goes back to the country to visit family.
Chartouny thinks his international experience will help prepare him for the rigors of the Big East.
“Any game you play against professional players is going to help you,” said Chartouny, who speaks English, French and Arabic. “Maybe they’re not as athletic or energetic as 18- or 19-year-old guys. But the fact that they have a really good skill set, a really good high understanding of the game, that makes it more difficult when you’re trying to score on them and try to stop them.”
Chartouny averaged 2.9 steals in 84 games at Fordham and was on the Atlantic 10 all-defensive team last season.
The Golden Eagles hope he can have the same defensive effect against high-major foes.
“A lot of times those numbers do translate,” Wojciechowski said. “Obviously the Big East is as good a basketball conference there is. The quality of competition that he’ll be playing, in the non-conference and in our conference, will be better than he’s ever seen before. But I think Joseph can be a very good player for us.”
Chartouny will only play one season for the Golden Eagles. But he has already developed a bond with his teammates.
"It's amazing," he said. "The guys who are on this team, they make it so you can feel real comfortable from Day 1.
"Everyone is enjoying being around each other. They're very positive, very competitive. So it's just a different environment right now and I really enjoy it."