The Missouri signee still throws weight around, but he’s trimming up, growing comfortable as a connector, and venturing beyond the paint to defend in space.
INDIANAPOLIS, IND. — On a frigid Thursday in February, the waning minutes of a shootaround inside the gym at Broad Ripple High School grants a fleeting peek at Peyton Marshall’s future.
The circumstances are innocuous to the uninitiated. RWE, the big man’s assigned team at Overtime Elite, is repping an action from a foundational set in coach Corey Frazier’s playbook.
Stationed at the elbow, Marshall watches point guard DaQuan Davis jog into a dribble handoff with wing Darrion Sutton. Out of the exchange, Sutton fires a chest pass to Marshall. “Flat!” hollers assistant coach Matt Floyd, floating nearby and inside the 3-point arc.
Rather than abruptly breaking on a backdoor cut, Sutton sprints toward Marshall for another exchange – and a test of Marshall’s reading comprehension. Does he let the two-man game play out? Does he hold the ball a smidge longer and turn Sutton into a cutter? Or does he drive the ball himself from the elbow?
Marshall sticks with the program, executing a quarter turn to adjust the exchange angle. “Don’t roll right away,” Floyd yelps. “Wait for the guard to tell you when to go.” Sutton gives his assent a half beat later and softly tosses the ball aloft – a lob Marshall happily mashes down.
Nine hours later, inside a rebranded gym packed with screeching tweens, with TikTok influencers posted up along the baseline, the stakes become real for Amazon Prime Video cameras as RWE takes on Cold Hearts. Eighty-seven seconds after the opening tip, Frazier dials up the same play from dress rehearsal, except Cold Hearts blows up the action and forces Sutton to loft a reversal to Marshall. Calmly, the Missouri signee pivoted and handed the ball to Karter Knox, who quickly dusted a trailing defender and exploded to the rim.
That night, Marshall posted a pedestrian four points and seven rebounds, but for 17 minutes, he served an equally fundamental role: knitting quick-hitting actions together. He’d carry out the job 10 more times in a 92-82 win, including seven possessions that bore a striking resemblance to the system he’ll have to learn a few months from now.
“What I want him ready to do is come in and make an impact right away,” Frazier said. “That is understanding all these different fundamental concepts and what’s at the basis of them. Then, they can grow him into what they want.”
Preparations only took Marshall 24 miles from Kell High School and his home in Marietta to the heart of downtown Atlanta. Its 103,000-square-foot facility houses 40 players with access to state-of-the-art tech you’d find at NBA practice gyms. It is staffed by a coterie of nutritionists, trainers, therapists, and skills coaches. Those like Marshall signed a scholarship with an NCAA-approved in-house academy.
All of this is befitting an operation backed by big money from Jeff Bezos but with a business model built on slathering social media channels with a healthy portion of content for all types of screens. Games are broadcast live on Prime Video and YouTube in a style more reminiscent of what you might see on Twitch than a cable network. That machinery already turned a slightly rude block by Marshall into a viral dopamine hit.
Almost two weeks ago, OTE packed up three in-house teams — RWE, Cold Hearts, and City Reapers — and invited a rebranded Moravian Prep for a road show to Indianapolis. They pulled in for a two-day stay overlapping the NBA’s All-Star weekend. Despite a site eight miles north of Gainbridge Fieldhouse, it was close enough to the center of the basketball universe that 50 people, ranging from GMs down to scouts, signed up for credentials.
Behind the glossier veneer, though, laid a more practical purpose: replicating all a road trip entails. And with it came a 48-hour window into the sweat equity Marshall invested for a bid to make an early dent at his next stop.
Corey Jones/MaxPreps
When Marshall reported to OTE’s palatial HQ, he tipped the scale at 336 pounds. Seven months later, he’s only shed eight pounds off his frame. Its distribution, however, could not be any more different, a sculpting job he recently shared with the masses.
A nutritionist tailored a menu to Marshall’s specific needs, one he professes to stick to. But just to be sure, she conducts weekly check-ins on Saturdays. He also sandwiches in additional conditioning work between RWE’s practices and individual skill development with Frazier and assistant coach Tory Miller.
In early December, Marshall swapped in-house teams, leaving behind Cold Hearts for RWE, which needed to backfill after Kentucky signee Somto Cyril injured his left hand. Frazier was direct: he wanted to slide heavy minutes to a fellow St. Louis native, but only if Marshall had the stamina to handle it.
“There’s so much potential,” Frazier said. “To get to all of it, we’ve got to shave some things down. We’ve got to get him in shape to play the kind of minutes that let him be effective.”
Marshall cuts an undoubtedly slimmer figure, but the core component of his game remains as brutish as ever. Back at Kell High, the script was familiar. Marshall would trot to the right block, bury a helpless defender, make a clean catch, and drop-step to the baseline. Rolling a help defender his way often proved futile. There would be some trips where Marshall finished with three defenders holding on for dear life.
Now, the scout is out. Defenders play more on the high side instead of behind, preventing an easy turn into the middle of the paint. Hard double teams still arrive from the baseline side to combat his favorite counter, but stronger guards dig down from the wings.
“The people I was playing against made it where all I had to do was just stand there and call for the ball,” Marshall said. “There are other guys in this league who can bump you around.”
One solution is elementary – change location. In the games I watched last spring and summer, nearly 70 percent of Marshall’s post-ups came on the right side of the lane. Now, he’s comfortable going to work on the opposite side. He can still clear out room with his shoulder, but being light on his feet means he’s quicker in getting to counters after feeling where his defender is positioned.
Asked about his approach to evolving Marshall’s interior game, Frazier said it’s a matter of changing the order of operations. There’s still a perception that Marshall’s an immovable object that gets moored in place. But Frazier quickly notes that Marshall’s footwork is deft enough to run a handoff, set a ball screen, and promptly roll or cut to the block.
It’s also imparting a critical lesson. For all of Marshall’s current dominance, only a few bigs are good enough to have an offense orbit around them.
“We want you to start up (the floor) and work your way down,” Frazier said. “We’re also in a 24-second shot clock. You’ve got to be faster. You’ve got to be decisive, and when that first action is done, you better get to your second spot if you want the ball.”
Sometimes, the mechanics aren’t all that intricate. Often, Marshall starts a possession on the wing, sets a down screen for a guard, and buries the smaller defender switched on to him.
“I’m familiar with it,” Marshall said. “But it’s really been put into effect where it’s an everyday type of thing. Before, it was just more of a situation like we (Kell) needed a play for coming out of a timeout.”
But again, facets of Marshall’s game remain universal. No matter the scheme, a team with reliable hands stationed in the short corner for dump-offs is better. Those mitts also come in handy on the occasional rim roll out of a side ball screen.
“It’s important for him to understand you don’t have to get stuck out here (on the perimeter),” Frazier said. “You can always get back to your spots. We try to shape our offense around the things he knows he can do.”
Adam Hagy/Overtime Elite
As Marshall’s recruitment unfolded, scouts slowly created an echo chamber around the idea that the big man wasn’t just a bruiser. When he isn’t bulldozing to the rim, he might spray a timely pass out from the post.
Tune into enough OTE games, and enough plays pop off the screen to lend that idea credence. And in huddles, Marshall’s not shy about telling teammates he will find them with a skip pass as they lift from the opposite corner. Or he is encouraging them to cut from the corner into the space vacated by a help defender rotating to spring a hard double.
For his part, though, Marshall evinces nonchalance when talking about distribution. “Someone else has to be open,” he said. “It’s just about me working through my reads.”
So, it falls to Frazier to gush. “He has such presence of mind,” the coach said. “Most high school kids aren’t going to say that. You don’t have a lot of college kids that will say it. It’s part of why his upside is so tremendous.”
Whether it’s an asset MU uses routinely is another matter. In Dennis Gates’ five seasons as a head coach, post-ups have never been a staple of his offenses. Per Synergy Sports data, only one ranked higher than No. 220 in Division I for possession volume – his first group at Cleveland State.
When Marshall recounts the pitch he received on an official visit, which took place way back in October 2022, it didn’t sound like Gates envisioned abandoning his scheme. Instead, Marshall sounded keen about adapting to his future coach’s parameters.
“It’s a real system,” Marshall recalled. “He broke it all down for me. He had all the facts. He had the statistics. He had the film – all the proof to show me what I’d be doing, what (NBA) scouts are looking for, and the position he’s going to put me in.”
To that end, Frazier convened calls with MU’s staff for input on how they’d like to see Marshall’s game evolve while at OTE. So, if some of what Marshall does on the floor looks familiar, it’s not by luck. “We try to have it a little bit of both ways,” Frazier said.
That fusion starts with the chin series Frazier installed. Triggered by a pass to the slot, an off-ball guard cuts over a back screen Marshall sets at the top of the key before catching a pass. And that’s where the fun begins, with Frazier using Marshall and five-star wing Karter Knox as a tandem.
Knox can set a screen for the nearest guard to run split action. He can halt his cut at the mid-post for a high-low feed from Marshall. The big man can call him back to run a two-man game in a stationary handoff. And if nothing else, Marshall might reverse the ball to the second side to keep the possession moving.
The first bit of schematic overlap comes from the delay series, another staple of the Princeton offense. Tex Winter and Mike D’Antoni borrowed elements of it for pro-style offenses, but it’s triggered in the way Pete Carril intended: a pass to a big at the top of the arc. But instead of flowing to a flare screen the slot, RWE almost treats it as a get-action for Knox to sprint into handoff to assault the middle gap.
Frazier’s wrinkles show up on the secondary actions. A pair of down screens on the wing can allow guards to curl or play out of zoom action. Or it stays true to history by using split action.
And finally, there’s the point series. Like MU, Frazier’s offense uses the “away” strain, which entails a passer feeding Marshall on the strong-side elbow and sprinting away for split action in the slot. RWE’s spin is to have Knox veer back toward Marshall to run a handoff. On the backside, the cutter in split action might not clear out to the corner. Instead, they turn and run the same action on the opposite side.
Aside from their Ivy League roots, these actions rely on inverting the floor, lifting the defense off the baseline, and tasking a big man with deciphering the action unfolding in front of them. These reads appear deceptively simple, but decisions must come in a millisecond – calculations that still cause Marshall some hesitation.
“I’m a little more cautious on the court about where I want to get the ball,” he admitted. “Is this a good pass? Is he really open? Sometimes, a guy looks open, but he’s not.”
Miller, who played in a similar system for Tad Boyle at Colorado, said a lagging processing speed shouldn’t surprise us. “Decision-making is a big part of what we’re trying to teach,” he said. “When we go through workouts, we try to break those reads apart slowly so he can begin to see them on his own.”
Frazier’s constantly preaching poise and patience. As they come up through the ranks, bigs like Marshall are rarely asked to function as connective tissue during a possession. They fret about holding the ball too long and bogging down the flow. “You start thinking, ‘Let me get off it,’” Frazier said. “No.”
When a defender is between Marshall and a cutter, he should consider a play over the top. Or he can call the guard back to run a handoff. It’s why stretches of Marshall’s workouts zero in on dribble pickups and deft pivots to turn his torso and create optimal angles out of those exchanges.
Marshall’s steadily improved, but his apprehension lingers. “I find myself homing in one guy more than the other,” he said. “If that other guy is getting open, I might see it, but it’s late.”
Yet some metrics puncture the idea — at least for now — of Marshall as a reliable junction to flow touches around the floor. For one, he’s cataloged twice as many turnovers as assists, and the rate of those giveaways (23.7 TOV%) can’t entirely be brushed aside.
The solution starts with better ball security. Marshall remains prone to bringing the ball down when making a post move or gathering momentum to go back up after snatching an offensive rebound. Modest as it sounds, Marshall keeping his elbows high should trim some of those giveaways. Tightening up his handle, which gets a bit away from his body, would also help when driving the ball from the elbow.
Frazier is acutely aware of what the numbers say about Marshall. OTE’s analytics staff regularly supplies him with the latest data, but they don’t consume his thought process in outlining Marshall’s path as a facilitator. “They’re a starting point,” he noted. “I can’t get fixated on them.” And quantitative analysis only makes sense when combined with the lessons imparted through live reps.
“I’ve got to let Peyton make mistakes, turn it over a couple of times, and we’ll go back to the film to teach,” Frazier added. “What are you seeing? What is the defense doing? Once we have those pieces, we start to make adjustments. This isn’t clean-up work. We’re still teaching, and he’s still learning.”
Those lessons will continue even after OTE, which started its playoffs last week, wraps up the season. Marshall will still have three months until he reports to Columbia for summer workouts, a span where Frazier’s syllabus calls for drilling concepts around uphill DHOs and getting Marshall comfortable with grabbing a rebound, taking two dribbles, surveying the floor, and hitting passes ahead.
Expanding Marshall’s range will also fall somewhere on the docket. No, that doesn’t mean letting it rip from beyond the arc. Let’s say Marshall pares down turnovers and dishes the ball reliably enough from the elbow. Scouting reports will eventually task his defender with sagging off. Knocking down elbow jumpers imposes a tax.
“He does have really good touch,” Miller said. “But it’s like a lot of things right now: consistency and reps. We’ve got to make sure he keeps his shoulders forward and the mechanics are reliable.”
Dale Zanine/Overtime Elite
The day before RWE jetted off to the Circle City, Charlton Young visited OTE’s headquarters to check in on Marshall. During their chat, MU’s associate head coach relayed what the program expects the signee to bring: defense, rebounding, and toughness.
“It’s taking that up a notch,” Marshall said. “I know they’ve been struggling on that end this year. It’s hard to watch sometimes, but I feel like we’re going to be good if I bring those things.”
Few would doubt Marshall’s presence won’t make a difference on the interior. It’s not just that his frame makes him hard to dislodge. He also comes with a plus-6-inch wingspan, and contesting shots is just a matter of translating that length into verticality.
At that same shootaround, RWE spent 15 minutes reviewing four staples of the Cold Hearts’ offense. A dribble-handoff followed by a ball reversal triggered each one, the tactics changing based on the action unfolding on the second side of the floor. In all but one, Marshall’s is tasked with clogging up the middle of the floor.
All that changed was his location in the lane. On a UCLA screen, Frazier directed him to play closer to the elbow and knock a cutter off course. But if the secondary action were a flex screen, Marshall would linger near the restricted area and switch on to the cutter.
It makes him an ideal anchor along the back line and as a low man responding to incursions as a help defender.
Slimming down, though, has made a noticeable difference in navigating around the rest of the floor. “I’ve always had good feet,” Marshall added. “Being down here has definitely helped my on-ball defense and being able to switch on guards.”
Frazier’s not offering safe havens, either.
“I’m not playing him in deep drop (coverage) all game,” he said.
Yet, it hasn’t been a rushed process. There are still some nights where Marshall lurks more than two steps below a ball screen, but it was a byproduct of a scouting report against guards who don’t play directly to the rim and against bigs who aren’t threats rolling toward the hoop.
Over the past month, though, Marshall played higher up the floor in a more traditional version of drop coverage. 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 dribble jumpers. And when I saw him live, Frazier directed him to blitz and straight switch some actions – particularly handoffs – more frequently.
“I’m a guy who they really tried to pick on,” Marshall said of scouting reports from his time at Kell and with Game Elite. “I feel better now. I feel I can definitely go out and guard those screens.”
From his seat, Miller sees clear improvement when Marshall inches up closer to the level of the screen and handling switches until a guard recovers. Still, there’s ample work left on the agenda before OTE sends Marshall off to the college ranks. “We’ve got to get that ticker going,” Miller said. “He’s got to be able to switch and move those feet.”
And it’s not hard to find possessions where the proposition of Marshall playing in space doesn’t pan out.
Even if adequately positioned, bigger wings still make some hay in the mid-range. Opponents have also started setting ball screens higher up the floor, giving ballhandlers more runway to launch rim attacks. Dribble handoffs scramble switch duties.
Putting Marshall in the mix creates extra work for teammates playing off the ball, especially defending rollers. Savvy lead guards take an extra dribble to pull Marshall away and give the screener time to pivot and dive. If a help defender doesn’t stunt from the slot to the nail, it’s an easy bucket.
RWE’s foes also find other ways to put Marshall under strain. They call pick-and-pops that test his change of direction and footspeed to close out on stretch fours. During his second game in Indianapolis, YNG Dreamerz inserted Chanx Martin, an undersized five, to hold the corner on the weak side of the floor. If Marshall rotated toward the midline, a kickout would force him into longer contests.
Those tweaks didn’t result in catastrophe, but you can see in the clips that Marshall often relied on his length to compensate for being late or short.
None of these issues gnaw at Frazier.
We often speak about a player’s potential, skill curves, and developmental plans but cringe at what the process looks like. “Six months ago, I don’t know if people thought he’d be this far along,” Frazier said. The context also matters. Marshall is experiencing growing pains against rosters replete with high-major talent in an up-tempo setting against offenses that whir through quick-hitting actions.
At some point, Marshall would face this litmus test — better that it’s taking place in Atlanta a year before MU tosses him into the fray against SEC squads.
“If you get beat, cool,” Frazier said. “I at least want to see you try it. People need to see what you could be. Like, ‘If he learns to do this, man…’ Why waste his time and mine trying to hide it? Can I develop you to play at the next level and beyond? This where we figure it out.”