When Marquette’s Shaka Smart talks about how his program shuns the transfer portal, he knows it sounds like he’s slamming those who do use it. That’s not his intention. Smart is one of just two high-major coaches who has not brought in a transfer in the first two cycles of the new immediate-eligibility world (Michigan State’s Tom Izzo is the other).
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“That doesn’t mean that we could never take a guy or never would,” Smart told The Athletic. “But with our emphasis on how we want to be culturally, the transactional nature of taking transfers also probably makes it less appealing for transfers looking at us, or us looking at them.”
Smart simply views college basketball through a different lens, and last season justified his approach. A year ago, Smart had three starters to replace and chose to bet on the players he had returning. That got his team picked ninth in the Big East during the preseason. That got point guard Tyler Kolek to now famously respond “f— ’em” at Big East Media Day, which became the team’s mantra. And Smart looked like the smartest man in the room when that loyalty and devotion to development turned his group into Big East champs in both the regular season and postseason, a first in school history.
With four starters and the Big East Sixth Man of the Year returning, Smart is again betting on his own, even if everyone else gets mesmerized by new shiny objects. In the betting markets, Marquette has the 10th-best odds to win the national title. In the way-too-early polls at The Athletic, CBS Sports, ESPN and Stadium, Marquette’s average ranking is 7.5. Our Seth Davis has the Golden Eagles highest at No. 5.
Coaches and media members like to talk about how much roster continuity matters. So why isn’t anyone picking Marquette as preseason No. 1?
Marquette beat 2023 national champion Connecticut two out of three times and handed the Huskies their final loss, in the Big East tournament semifinals. “To know that you’re better than the team that won the national championship,” Marquette guard Kam Jones said, “is really motivating.”
UConn finished at No. 1 in KenPom.com’s rankings, but for three months, Marquette was better. And the season-long data points are relevant when it comes to putting too much stock in the final result. Marquette lost to Michigan State in the second round of the tournament; Michigan State has better odds to win the 2024 title (+1600, compared to +2200) and ranks higher in every way-too-early Top 25. But every advanced metric said Marquette was the better team last season. The Golden Eagles finished 10th at KenPom, compared to 26th for Michigan State. Both lost their starting power forwards — the Spartans’ Joey Hauser was the team’s second-leading scorer, while Olivier-Maxence Prosper was Marquette’s third-leading scorer — and though the Spartans have the higher-rated incoming class, it’s rare for freshmen to make a huge impact in this new era of the sport.
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Who owns the Garden? Right now it's Shaka Smart's Marquette
Preseason rankings don’t matter, of course, but the way Smart is operating offers a case study in whether the old-school way of roster building is still a viable path to a championship. For those worried about what the transfer portal is doing to the sport, you should root for Marquette.
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And to really understand why it’s working for Smart and why we should be betting on Marquette, go back to his emphasis: culture. It’s the most overused word in sports, but it sure seems relevant when you try to figure out how Smart’s zag has already provided some great returns.
When Smart first speaks with a recruit, he sends them a 27-page culture document that is like the Bible for his program. He wrote it after his only losing season in his 14-year run as a head coach — in 2016-17 at Texas — and the purpose of sharing it right away is to make sure Marquette is recruiting people who align with what they want.
“Our three core values are relationships, growth and victory,” Smart said. “So it’s not like really revelatory, but believe it or not, there are people that play basketball that don’t value relationships. There are people that are really, really good players that don’t take their growth seriously, or don’t necessarily honor what goes into winning.”
If you ask what was the difference between his first year at Marquette — a solid, NCAA Tournament-qualifying season — and the ring-collecting second season, the answer his players give is buy-in.
“It’s easy to repeat and say the stuff that the coaches want to hear when they’re around, but I think what was really different this year was, even when the coaches weren’t there, the players, we really believe and care about the stuff that they’re preaching to us,” forward Oso Ighodaro said. “So the message is consistent from the coaching staff to the players. And we took that and we ran with it, and we held each other accountable to those standards that our coaches have for us.”
“That can take you further than some people may think,” Kolek said.
The standard was set in the summer months, when development is so important. No one outside of the program would have foreseen Kolek becoming Big East Player of the Year or Kam Jones and Ighodaro as all-league performers or Prosper becoming the No. 24 pick in the NBA Draft. At least not so quickly. Jones remembers hearing last summer about how good the team might eventually be in 2023-24. Considering the youth of the 2022-23 team, it was easy to suggest it was a developmental season. Jones said there was a discussion amongst the Marquette players that boiled down to this: “We have four years here. That’s the most we get. We don’t want to waste years. They talk about next year, but we want to be good this year coming up.”
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— Marquette Basketball (@MarquetteMBB) June 16, 2023
Young guys like Jones were allowed an opportunity to make the leap because Smart didn’t recruit over them. Of course, it’s just not about the minutes available; it’s the message it sends.
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“If your coach is fishing or looking for somebody to come to your school, that’s obviously saying to the guys that are here, ‘We don’t think we have enough to win at the level we want to win at,’ and I feel like that can mess with guys,” Jones said. “I feel like that is a mental challenge that I’m grateful I really don’t have to go through.”
The more important part of the relationship to Smart is making sure the players know he cares simply by spending time with them. Smart said he still hears the voices of his first boss, Keith Dambrot, and mentor, George Raveling. Dambrot told his assistants, “You’ve got to spend time” with your players. Raveling always said, “You better make sure your talk-to-listen ratio is right.”
That’s what a big part of the summer months are about. (Marquette did have three players transfer out this spring, but those three played a combined 55 minutes.) Smart said the way to keep guys is by working on those relationships constantly.
“Every time I go into his office, you just feel that connection to the head coach,” Jones said. “That honestly makes you feel kind of invincible as a player to know my head coach genuinely believes in me and he’s a genuine friend of mine and someone I can call that has my best interests at heart.”
That makes it easier to deliver feedback that will be received, and that’s how meaningful improvement occurs.
The focus this summer is on defense, where Marquette ranked 43rd in adjusted efficiency last season. Smart believes the Golden Eagles can get better in a lot of small areas: 3-point defense, rebounding, when to give what he calls “appropriate help” and getting more deflections.
“Through the last four years, going back to Texas, our team has had more deflections than we had the year before,” he said. “So there’s absolutely no reason why we don’t think we can continue to improve there. We got all our best deflection guys back. And we got some guys coming in that we think can help us with that.”
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Marquette also changed some of its tactics last season — trapping the post, for instance — so progress is expected in Year 2. The Golden Eagles also get some extra time to work on those things with a trip to Italy later this summer.
The more exciting developments, and what the offseason is really about, are the steps each player can take. Jones is trying to be more efficient in his movement. “Cover more ground, take less steps,” he said. “Not wasting dribbles, not standing, taking purposeless dribbles, making every dribble meaningful.”
Jones has been shown examples on tape of how he would take a rounding angle to get to the basket instead of a straight one. He shot 69.6 percent at the rim, per Synergy, which is an awesome percentage for a player his size, but he believes he can improve that number if he takes better angles. (The team’s 8-of-23 performance at the rim against Michigan State is still fresh in everyone’s minds.)
Stevie Mitchell has been empowered to take on more playmaking. “I think he’s going to really trust his work next year,” Ighodaro said. “This year, he was definitely confident, but it wasn’t at the level he’s at right now. And he’s just taking this big leap with his confidence and his shooting and ballhandling and just being super aggressive on the offensive end.”
Ighodaro is working on his jump shot. He hasn’t attempted a 3-pointer in three seasons. That will likely change. Under special assistant Nevada Smith’s guidance, Ighodaro has elevated his release point and moved it to the right side of his face. “It’s night and day from where it was,” Ighodaro said.
If Ighodaro is a threat, it changes how teams have to guard Marquette. The center can no longer sag back, which could make dribble handoff actions harder to guard because if the center isn’t several steps back in a help position, it’s easier for the guard to turn the corner.
Smart said Kolek, Jones and Ighodaro are such elite playmakers, they just need space and they’ll figure it out. Their creativity and ability to dissect a coverage so quickly is next level. Sagging back on defense? Jones will just screen his man, then loop over the top for a dribble handoff and shoot a 3 behind the screen.
“The way teams guard Oso and play way off, he becomes a lethal screener,” Smith said.
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The Marquette offense was already seventh-best in college basketball. It’ll look different without Prosper, whose speed generated some easy buckets in transition and who was also an excellent cutter. If sixth man David Joplin is the replacement, those are not areas he excels in. But he has been the team’s best pick-and-pop option. Marquette scored 1.361 points per possession with him as the roll man, per Synergy. He could look like a different player, too.
“He’s worked his butt off on conditioning,” Smart said. “We’d like for him to come into this next season in better shape than he was to start last season. Not that he was in bad shape, but we feel like the more he can move, and breathe, and cut and sprint, the more he’ll be able to be a really effective player because he’s a gifted scorer.”
Joplin is Jones’ answer when he’s asked who is the player outsiders will be shocked by this season. “He’s a load to deal with,” Jones said. “Can’t really force him to do anything because he can do what you’re trying to force him to do.”
There’s also a super-small sample size that says the offense will cook when Joplin is with the returning starters. In 70 possessions with those five on the floor last season, Marquette scored a prosperous 1.26 points per possession, per Hooplens.com.
The other players who will likely see their minutes increase in that spot are sophomores Chase Ross and Ben Gold. Smart points to the leap last year’s sophomore class (Jones, Joplin and Mitchell) made. He sees similar potential for Ross, Gold and Sean Jones.
Gold can play both frontcourt spots, and his combination of shooting and size is intriguing. Gold spent last summer playing for New Zealand in FIBA competition, but he’s in Milwaukee this summer and Smart is trying to convince him how good he could be.
“Sometimes players don’t see in themselves what you see in them,” Smart said. “So it just takes time. I see a guy that can be a phenomenal player here in our program and our system. The way we play offensively, defensively, he’s an awesome fit. When he’s playing our trigger spot (offensively), he presents a lot of issues because he can shoot, he can put the ball on the floor and he can pass.”
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Ross can fill the athleticism void left by Prosper, and he’s not lacking in confidence. “Chase is walking around here like he’s a guy,” Smith said.
Smart said Ross can make an impact with his voice. “We just need him to speak up much more,” Smart said. “If he does that, literally, the rest of his game will follow and he’ll take a major jump.”
This is now the old-school way of doing things. Waiting your turn has become a rarity. College basketball has also traditionally been a sport where the national champ is a team with a core that grows up together and learns from its March failures. Connecticut added some complementary pieces in the portal a year ago, but the core was already intact. Rarely has a microwaved roster ever won the title.
Smart asked everyone in the program this spring to write takeaways from the postseason experience. He said he got some really rich stuff from both players and staff, and they’ll discuss the feedback this summer as a team. He believes the key to March success is finding a way as individuals and a team to be at their best in the moment, regardless of circumstance.
There’s value in those shared experiences. Some also see value in being able to plug holes with an experienced player from outside the program. Smart did that when he took the job. His first team had four transfers in the starting lineup, including Prosper and Kolek. But that was before NIL went into effect and bidding wars broke out.
“We’ve never really believed in ever prioritizing someone that’s not worn our jersey over guys that have been here and built our program and been receptive, been recruited by us to come in here, build relationships and grow and win,” Smart said.
(Top photo of Stevie Mitchell, left, Tyler Kolek and Kam Jones: John Minchillo / AP)
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