High above Fiserv Forum, a Golden Eagle circles Milwaukee’s downtown. Patient, poised and calculating.
That’s the vantage point Shaka Smart’s retooled Marquette squad carries into the 2025-26 season: the hunters again, not the hunted. Their mission this year isn’t redemption or defending a title; it’s a pursuit back to greatness.
Heading into Smart’s fifth season with the blue & gold, Marquette finds itself not in the national spotlight, a shift from the buzz that surrounded the program just a year ago. It received zero votes in the first Associated Press top 25 poll and Big East coaches voted it the fifth-best team in the conference preseason poll.
In a highly competitive Big East, Smart still refuses to rely on the transfer portal to build a roster; a strategy that he has admitted will be tested the most this season, having lost 72% of his scoring production from last season and replenishing none of it via the transfer portal.
“This will be unequivocally the most difficult task that Smart has had since he took the reins in Milwaukee,” college basketball insider Jon Rothstein said in his preseason rankings series, placing Marquette at No. 39.
He has maintained an ethos of long-term development over the transfer portal and building a culture: Relationships, Growth and Victory.
“If you think back to your college experience, whether you participated in athletics or not, those were three of the most important things that went into you having a successful and enjoyable experience,” Smart told Marquette Today. “It’s really what binds us together.”
After three consecutive years of high expectations, the Eagles have slipped from their perch to looking up at UConn and St. John’s — programs built on roster overhauls, not culture and patience.
“The headline here is that Marquette loses their top three scorers (Kam Jones, Stevie Mitchell and David Joplin) from last season’s team and didn’t really go out and find comparable talent, not adding a single name from the transfer portal,” said Joey Loose from Busting Brackets, a college basketball analysis site.
CBS Sports college basketball analyst Gary Parrish predicts a tough conference race, with Marquette finishing fourth. Despite national skepticism, Smart continues to focus on building a family that can outproduce a portal-assembled roster.
“Stubborn or smart, this is a philosophy that can work, but eventually you are going to get caught,” Parrish said during his Big East season preview for CBS.
Parrish’s co-host on CBS Sports’ “Eye on College Basketball” podcast, Matt Norlander, is the most bullish on Smart and his roster construction methods. He ranked the Golden Eagles third in the Big East and No. 25 in his preseason Top 100 And 1 poll.
Smart believes the values he has built will allow his nonconformist approach to elevate the Golden Eagles above portal-reliant competition.
“I get asked so many times, ‘How do you get your guys to come back in the midst of the craziness of the transfer portal?’ For example, did you know 48 percent of basketball players at the Division I level put their name in the transfer portal? The number one reason is relationships,” Smart said.
Only two seniors return from last year’s rotation, Chase Ross (the only Golden Eagle to earn preseason All-Big East honors) and Ben Gold, meaning Smart will need his depth to make strides. Ross and Gold averaged 10.5 and 7.4 points per game last season, respectively, and both, along with redshirt junior Sean Jones — who missed all of 2024-25 recovering from an ACL tear — will need to make major leaps as leaders this season.
“Do-everything guard Chase Ross has All-Big East caliber potential and Smart is also counting on a major jump from sophomore forward Royce Parham,” Rothstein said in his rankings series. “Jones is the type of breakneck point guard that Smart has thrived with during his head coaching career.”
Marquette opens the season on Nov. 3 against the Albany Great Danes, providing a chance for the new-look Golden Eagles to showcase their potential. As the Golden Eagles prepare to be the hunters, many questions remain about whether they are ready to compete at the top of the Big East again.
Smart, along with his roster, will have to do heavy lifting to claw their way back to the top.
“If Marquette reaches the NCAA tournament in 2026,” Rothstein said, “Smart will be at the top of the list for Big East coach of the year.”
This story was written by Conor McPherson. He can be reached at conor.mcpherson@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @ConorMcPherson_.