Outside Ian Miletic’s Arlington Heights home, there hangs a big blue Marquette flag.
Ian’s parents, Karrie and Don Miletic, put it up after he accepted his scholarship offer. It’s how they announced their son’s decision to their neighbors. Shaka Smart likes to tell the many Chicagoland alumni to “fly the flag,” and while they aren’t technically alums, soon their son will be. They are just a few years ahead of the curve.
At least once a month, by Karrie’s estimate, people will walk by the Miletic house, see her and Don, sometimes joined by their 5-year-old white English lab Ivo, sitting on their big front porch, the flag waving in the wind above.
“Oh, is this where Ian lives?” the passersby ask. “We’ve read all about him.”
Ian, who is about to enter his first season as a Marquette men’s basketball player, is the first Chicago-area Golden Eagle in five years, and the first during the Smart era. So, his commitment carries extra weight for the entire area.
“It’s always a good conversation on our porch,” Karrie said.
There’s a reason they hung the high-flying flag in front of their house for all to see. The simple explanation is that Ian is at Marquette. The more exact reasoning has to do with the work it took to bring him here.
Even though it is, after all, simply, a flag. A piece of stitched fabric, dyed and branded a specific way. It’s also a tangible representation of the result of Smart’s unconventional recruitment strategies to form real, meaningful connections in a stone-hearted world of dollar-sign transactions.
The fruits of his one-of-a-kind labor.
Probably hundreds of newspaper inches have been dedicated over the years to the old-school roster-construction methods Smart employs — for good and bad.
Namely, how he spurns the transfer portal. But also how he doesn’t focus on a recruit’s star-count or ranking. Not to mention the two things Karrie immediately noticed the first time she met him: how he emphasizes not only the player, but the entire person, and, along with that, how he takes time to meet the entire family.
Really, the things that make Smart a sort of black sheep in college basketball.
Nigel James Sr., father of first-year Nigel James Jr. — who hails from Long Island and goes by NJ — described Smart’s recruitment as “180 degrees” different from other programs. It’s so distinct that when another school’s coach saw Smart talking with NJ, he told James Sr., “I don’t think we have a shot” because of how uniquely the Marquette coach recruits.
Those differences were clear right away. The first time James Sr. met Smart — in Atlanta at an AAU tournament the summer before NJ’s junior year of high school — one thing immediately stuck out to him: Smart’s humility.
NJ’s mom, Naima James, could also see Smart wasn’t like the other coaches she talked to. She met Smart during NJ’s official visit to Marquette, four months after being offered. It was out of the ordinary for Smart to go that long without communicating with a recruit’s parent, something he did not shy away from.
As Naima and Smart sat in the lobby of the Kimpton Journeyman Hotel, sharing stories not about hoops but life, someone on the Washington Wizards who knew Smart happened to come downstairs and see him.
“His face lit up,” Naima said.
The two immediately embraced, exchanging pleasantries and well-wishes before going on about their days.
“When I realized that’s consistent, this is his personality,” she said, “I liked it.”
“I call him Shaka like we’re best friends,” Karrie said as she laughed, recognizing she’s known him for only a year and a half.
That’s the Smart effect.
The first time Smart visited Rolling Meadows High School, they talked a little basketball and a lot of family. At the Miletics’ first Marquette game, halfway through Ian’s junior year of high school, Smart delayed his post-game press conference to first speak to Don, Karrie and Ian before they left. Karrie has met Smart’s wife Maya and seen his daughter, Zora. Smart has met Ian’s grandparents and sister, Katrina.
Over the five months between Marquette offering Ian and him committing, Karrie got to know Shaka, not just coach Smart. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one is the home visit, something he does with every player he heavily recruits. Seeing someone’s home on their “home turf” paints a different, more holistic picture than their school. One that Smart doesn’t just like, but needs.
“You get a chance to see where they live and some very intimate, personal things about their families,” Smart said. “You learn more about them as people.”
Ian’s was easy to orchestrate; it’s only a 90-minute drive from Marquette to Arlington Heights. And April of his junior year, three months after being offered, Smart and assistant Neill Berry, who spearheaded Ian’s recruitment, made the trip. Karrie was nervous about it, unsure what to expect. No other program to offer Ian — including in-state Illinois and down-the-road Loyola Chicago — did this.
“Marquette was the most personal with extra touches,” Karrie said. “It was almost like a step to feeling like part of their family.”
The day came. And after Karrie, ever-the-mother, dutifully inquired about any dietary habits, the family (half-Croatian on Don’s side), put out a traditional Croatian lunch of Ćevapi (a kind of sausage) with Kupus Salata (cabbage salad) on the side. They sat and ate and talked for two hours. Ian showed the coaches his bedroom and where he works out downstairs. While in the living room, Smart commented on a “GRATITUDE IS EVERYTHING” sign Karrie made at an art shop hanging above their couch.
“Interesting,” he said after reading it. “That is how I feel about everything.”
One of the side benefits of Smart’s approach is that other people — from the program’s past and present — end up recruiting on his behalf.
Since being hired in 2021, Smart, who got his bachelor’s degree in history, has made it a point to engrain himself in the traditions of the school. He’s brought back as speakers program legends that went to the Final Four — including Travis Diener, Dwyane Wade and Tom Crean — along with someone who won Marquette’s lone national championship, Ulice Payne Jr.
Some of these people have become, intentionally or not, one of his most influential recruiting tools; what sticks out to Karrie, Naima and James Sr. when they reflect on the decision-making process.
“You see so many former players so supportive of what (Smart’s) doing,” said Diener, who remembers talking to sophomore Damarius Owens and former guard Tyler Kolek as recruits. “Because he takes time, and it’s genuine, and he’s trying to build relationships.”
From the Miletics’ first visit to Fiserv Forum to their last, they heard the soft pitches. After the games, normally while Ian was in the locker room, as the rest of his family waited in the bowels of Fiserv, former players would walk by and give their two cents.
“This program is amazing.”
“I cannot recommend it enough.”
“It was really cool to hear and see those people coming back,” Karrie said, “and without a doubt, talk so highly of Marquette as a program.”
On NJ’s official visit in October of his junior year, along with the scheduled campus, city and facilities tours showing off the schools’ bells and whistles, Smart again utilized perhaps his biggest strength: his people. His relationships. While they did go out to dinner one night, what James Sr. remembered most about the weekend was a simple night-in.
Marquette ordered takeout. Smart and Cody Hatt, the assistant who led NJ’s recruitment, and some other coaches sat with them. Players at the time like Tyler Kolek, Oso Ighodaro and Kam Jones stopped by. They all sat around the room eating, watching sports and talking about what it means to be a Golden Eagle. Not some five-star, three-course meal at Milwaukee’s finest steakhouse, but food to-go, chairs and a tv.
“It was really genuine,” James Sr. said.
It took Ian less than a week after his official visit to commit to Marquette. He left campus and just knew.
NJ, who committed essentially one month after Ian on July 16, needed a little bit longer. But his parents are adamant nobody on Marquette, unlike other programs, ever pressured or rushed him into a decision. The same cannot be said for his father.
“The other man in this video did,” Naima said on a Zoom call in reference to James Sr.
“I said, ‘Hurry up and commit,’” he added. “‘Let’s go.’”
That’s what Smart’s recruiting process — from the introductions, to the home visits, to the official visits, to the constant, unremitting communication every step of the way — leads to: a commitment from everybody.
It’s why James Sr. goaded NJ to put pen to paper. Why NJ actually did. Why Ian needed only six days to decide. Why Naima was comfortable dropping her son off in May. Why former players call recruits. Why those hallway pitches occur.
Why Karrie and Don “fly the flag.”
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at jack.albright@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.