By Jackson Gross (@JGrossReporter)
One hallmark of any team led by Shaka Smart was the edge and tenacity it brought every night.
From VCU to Texas, and now at Marquette, his defenses have led the charge, and it’s been a very successful formula for Smart. Even with that guiding principle, it won’t always work year in and year out, and after four strong seasons, it stopped working last year. The Golden Eagles seemingly lost their edge, allowing the fourth-most points per game in the Big East last season at 75.8 PPG en route to a 12-20 season. Now, with Marquette’s season just 27 days away from tipping off, Smart is looking to bring that edge back this year, speaking at Big East media day on Thursday.
“The group we have is a terrific blend of returners and new players,” Smart said. “What you’re going to see when we take the floor is a team with a lot of edge, a lot of connectivity, and the willingness to get our fingernails dirty.”
“We do have some guys who can put the ball in the basket, but no matter what we do on the offensive end, defense has to come first. Our expectation is for our guys to get their hands on the basketball relentlessly. We want to be the best in the country in deflections, and we want to make the other team miss. You have to have an edge to go about that.”
We all know the passion that Smart has brought on daily basis to his programs, getting extremely animated on the sidelines, even getting into a low defensive stance at times. He’s animated, energetic, and a passionate basketball coach at all times. Sometimes that even comes before the sun comes up, when the team goes through what Smart calls “implementation.”
“We do something every morning of a practice day called implementation, where we come together as a program early in the morning before the sun is up,” he explained. “We go through certain walkthroughs, and suffice it to say I’m the most excited one in the gym walking into implementation, and I’m asking our guys to match that excitement level as they’re kind of wiping the sleep from their eyes.”
The 2025-26 season of course didn’t go the way that Smart and the rest of the team expected or wanted it to go, with a six-game losing streak, injuries to key players, and even some underperformances at times from even some of the more veteran players on the roster. Now, with a chance to wipe the slate clean and be the team Marquette wants to be going into 2026, there’s a lot of excitement coming from the coaches and the players to what this season could be.
“There’s certainly a taste in our mouth coming off last year that we want to replace, and we have motivation and excitement with our current roster,” Smart said. “What excites me about our guys is the connectivity they are building together around winning. When we’ve been our best at Marquette, our whole has been greater than the sum of our parts, and then the greater whole is reflected on the parts and has blessed those parts to create great opportunities.”
Preseason Accolades
As far as the preseason awards go, Marquette had three players receive honors. Sophomore Nigel James, Jr. was a unanimous pick for the all-Big East First team, junior Royce Parham was selected to the second team, and senior Sananda Fru was a third-team selection. As far as the preseason poll goes, Marquette was picked to finish fourth in the conference, with UConn once again predicted to win it. St. John’s and Villanova came in second and third, respectively, but what stands out as well is that Marquette was the only other team that got a first-place vote outside of the Huskies and the Red Storm. Despite those positives coming out of media day, Smart really didn’t take much stock of what both the coaches poll had to say.
“I’ve been doing this long enough to know that they don’t really mean a whole lot,” he said. “We’ve been picked ninth and won it, we’ve been picked first and not won it. It’s more about where you go from here, but for us, we have big goals this year, make no mistake about it. Our expectation is to compete for championships. Our expectation is to grow every month so that we’re playing our best basketball by the month of March, and our expectation for each of our players is to get better.”
Colin Porter Update
A day after media day, we got an update on Colin Porter’s quest to be granted a fifth year of eligibility through the court system, amongst several other plaintiffs.
For those who haven’t been following the case, Porter is involved in two separate lawsuits, one in Kentucky and one in North Carolina. Unfortunately for him and Marquette, he suffered a legal blow from the Kentucky Court of Appeals, as it dissolved a temporary injunction. That temporary injunction, instituted on August 21, kept the players eligible to play and transfer to new schools while the legal process played out. The Kentucky and North Carolina lawsuits are still pending, but removing the injunction would make anyone not in another lawsuit ineligible for the upcoming season. Smart was asked about this update and what it means for the Golden Eagles and Porter moving forward.
“So we’re just kind of TBD with him, just trying to support him through it,” Smart said. “He has been great. I feel bad for him that he’s in limbo with this, but he’s been awesome with his approach.”
“This was something we knew when we took him that this could be up in the air. It could be in limbo. We had conversations with people in the NCAA in this particular case who are directly fighting against the fifth-year guys getting eligibility. We decided at that point that it made sense to try to do, but we knew that it wouldn’t be 100 percent.”
Injury Updates
A few days after media day, Marquette held an intrasquad scrimmage, but four players didn’t participate. One, of course, was the aforementioned Porter, who is still dealing with his legal challenge to his eligibility; the other three in Damarius Owens (back), Michael Phillips (foot/ankle), and Caedin Hamilton (ankle) are all dealing with physical injuries. Owens’ and Phillips’ seem to be on the minor side, since they participated in some sideline drills, but Hamilton’s is much more serious.
Ben Steele of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that Smart said he estimates that it will be 8-12 weeks for Hamilton to return from a torn calf muscle. If the timeline is correct, he could return as early as December 9 against New Hampshire, and as late as January 9 on the road against Villanova.
Leave a Reply