Two Shaka Smarts In Conflict

As we inch closer towards putting together our Player Reviews (I wait until the NCAA tournament is over for the most accurate stat rankings! ), there’s still some unpacking of what happened in the 2025-26 Marquette men’s basketball season. In today’s case, we’re going to look at some things that we thought were pretty established ideas about the Golden Eagles during Shaka Smart’s first four seasons in Milwaukee and try to reconcile the fact that these things did not continue to hold true in Year #5.

There’s not going to be any answers as to how we ended up with Marquette going 12-20 here, it’s more “let’s look at our prior beliefs and assumptions and figure out whether or not we should still be holding onto them. ” Shaka Smart knows how to develop guys into Big East starters if not NBA players VERSUS Shaka Smart failed to develop Big East rotation-level players for 2025-26 On his very first Marquette roster, Shaka Smart had The Atlantic 10 Freshman of the Year who was most definitely not a point guard at 2. 3 assists in 30 minutes a game A little used ACC backup who played 2 minutes in the conference tournament and not at all in the NCAA tournament as a freshman A 6’9” beanpole who played in five games at Marquette as a freshman The #92 and #166 prospects in the 2021 247 Sports Composite rankings as signed prospects and the #124 prospect that he brought with him from his Texas signing class.

Does any of that sound like the building blocks for four NCAA tournament teams, much less two #2 seeds, the best ever in program history, as well as a Big East regular season and tournament champion team? It doesn’t jump off the page that way, right? Shaka Smart and his staff turned — in order — Tyler Kolek, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, Oso Ighodaro, Stevie Mitchell, Kam Jones, and David Joplin into Big East starters.

They turned Prosper into a first round NBA Draft pick. They turned Kolek, Ighodaro, and Jones into second round NBA Draft picks. They turned Mitchell into a G League rotation guy .