2026 Transfer Portal

[mileskishnish72]

Reading this just took me back to when we played Nova in the Big East Tournament two years ago and Oso made a quick bounce pass to Kam that resulted in what would've been a game-winning buzzer beater. Still feeling the anxiety from those five long minutes of review.

Another Breeding MSG F-up.

[MUDPT]

If you watch from one angle, one of the refs counts it good, the other two (including Breeding)don't make any motion and go right to the monitor.

[K1 Lover]

Found the clip in case anyone wants to re-live it.

https://youtu.be/m-lX4KbS5UI?si=AGqZOQGPCzi5NM-Y

[Vander Blue Man Group]

Article in The Athletic regarding Shaka evolving to use the portal.  It might be free if you don't have a membership.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7281593/2026/05/15/shaka-smart-marquette-transfer-portal-philosophy/

[MU82]

Found the clip in case anyone wants to re-live it.

https://youtu.be/m-lX4KbS5UI?si=AGqZOQGPCzi5NM-Y

Well, Sam's shot probably shouldn't have counted against Creighton, but they gave it to us and that let us win in OT. So maybe a case of these things evening out. Regardless, we went 2-0 in those games.

I'm enjoying the Scoopiness of us all having this conversation in this most appropriate thread for it!

[MU82]

Article in The Athletic regarding Shaka evolving to use the portal.  It might be free if you don't have a membership.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7281593/2026/05/15/shaka-smart-marquette-transfer-portal-philosophy/

From the article:

This past season, Smart admits, he overestimated what he thought certain players would be able to do in the roles they were given, both on the court and culturally.
Marquette also had some injuries to veterans — Sean Jones and Zaide Lowery missed a combined 45 games — and that forced younger players into bigger roles. By early December, Smart was starting freshmen guards Nigel James and Adrien Stevens.

It's good that Shaka admitted that he overestimated what MU would get from numerous players. It was obvious to pretty much all of us here that was the case, and it pretty much kneecapped this past season.

The writer, CJ Moore, did a nice job ... though he was wrong about Lowery being injured - unless he was talking about Lowery's hurt ego.

[#UnleashThePortal]

Being reminded of that just annoys me more that the ball was out of his hands. At least we still won!

Went to do a victory smoke after the first replay showed it clearly out of his hand, came back in furious.

[Jay Bee]

It's good that Shaka admitted that he overestimated what MU would get from numerous players. It was obvious to pretty much all of us here that was the case, and it pretty much kneecapped this past season.

He's doing it again this coming season. #LastYear

[brewcity77]

Article in The Athletic regarding Shaka evolving to use the portal.  It might be free if you don't have a membership.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7281593/2026/05/15/shaka-smart-marquette-transfer-portal-philosophy/

My biggest issue was this:

"The lesson: Seattle's process was not bad unless you're only basing it on the result."

Shaka uses this excerpt to indicate that if Marquette's process was good, the 12-20 result last year was not indicative of failure. Essentially, saying "don't read too much into the wins and losses."

However, that same principle should apply to 2022-23, 2023-24, and the first half of 2024-25. Don't read too much into the wins and losses and be willing to look at places where the process did or didn't work as designed.

Can you justify not taking transfers in 2023 after O-Max left because you had Joplin and felt there was enough quality on the bench? Sure. But after 2024, the process should be re-evaluated when you see what happened after TK went down. He got hurt, and we continued to play at a relatively high level because Kam unexpectedly showed acumen for the point. The lesson to take from this is not just that Kam can run the point, but that you need positional coverage for when your star runs out of gas, whether TK's injury or Kam falling off the next year.

Instead, they ignored the wins and losses, figured "if it ain't broke..." and ran it back with the same roster and no coverage for Kam. Even if you count Sean, the original injury reports the staff received had him sitting out the entire 2024-25 season and their optimism didn't show up until December that he might be back early. They knew in April/May what their depth situation would be and instead of learning from TK when the process was going well, they ignored that.

They continued to win but not at the same level, and ignored process lessons again by running back Caedin and Sean, expecting them to play at a high level despite no on-court evidence either was capable of doing that. Call it misevaluation, call it roster mismanagement, whatever, but it clearly was a failure. So they can ignore the losses of 2025-26, but if they are ignoring the process faults that led to them, they clearly didn't learn anything from the book they are citing to reinforce their system.

[wisblue]

Having an upperclassman starter become disgruntled and then leave the team probably had more of a negative impact on the team than if he had been injured.

[panda]

He's doing it again this coming season. #LastYear

You'll get more ch18 and you'll like it.

[withoutbias]

My biggest issue was this:

"The lesson: Seattle's process was not bad unless you're only basing it on the result."

Shaka uses this excerpt to indicate that if Marquette's process was good, the 12-20 result last year was not indicative of failure. Essentially, saying "don't read too much into the wins and losses."

However, that same principle should apply to 2022-23, 2023-24, and the first half of 2024-25. Don't read too much into the wins and losses and be willing to look at places where the process did or didn't work as designed.

Can you justify not taking transfers in 2023 after O-Max left because you had Joplin and felt there was enough quality on the bench? Sure. But after 2024, the process should be re-evaluated when you see what happened after TK went down. He got hurt, and we continued to play at a relatively high level because Kam unexpectedly showed acumen for the point. The lesson to take from this is not just that Kam can run the point, but that you need positional coverage for when your star runs out of gas, whether TK's injury or Kam falling off the next year.

Instead, they ignored the wins and losses, figured "if it ain't broke..." and ran it back with the same roster and no coverage for Kam. Even if you count Sean, the original injury reports the staff received had him sitting out the entire 2024-25 season and their optimism didn't show up until December that he might be back early. They knew in April/May what their depth situation would be and instead of learning from TK when the process was going well, they ignored that.

They continued to win but not at the same level, and ignored process lessons again by running back Caedin and Sean, expecting them to play at a high level despite no on-court evidence either was capable of doing that. Call it misevaluation, call it roster mismanagement, whatever, but it clearly was a failure. So they can ignore the losses of 2025-26, but if they are ignoring the process faults that led to them, they clearly didn't learn anything from the book they are citing to reinforce their system.

Shaka says he misevaluated what he thought players on the team would be able to do in new roles last year.  He talks about how what they did in 2022 appears to not be what they can do to be successful in 2026.  He changed courses and took two high level transfers.  And your takeaway is one sentence of the article that suggests that he ain't changing, last season wasn't an issue with the process it was a one year blip.

This after complaining constantly about who he hired and positions he didn't create.

Maybe look at everything he's done this offseason and trust that he realizes he messed up last season.  Look at his career as a head coach and realize he's a successful high major coach.

I know you went all in on him not being able to move away from RGV without changing jobs, not being able to take transfers if he's "a man of his word," and now that he's proven you wrong with that (or proven to be someone who won't live up to his word) everything has to be criticized, but he's proving that he's been willing to adjust and continue to compete at a high level.

Will we compete for a BE title next year?  We'll see.  But if we land Crowdis, then really the only big hole left is depth at the 5, and Shaka had that until somebody wildly overpaid for that depth piece we had to bring him to his hometown.  I can't find fault in Shaka for not overpaying to keep him.  We want Marquette to play the portal game.  We can't expect Marquette players not to play the portal game too.

[panda]

Shaka says he misevaluated what he thought players on the team would be able to do in new roles last year.  He talks about how what they did in 2022 appears to not be what they can do to be successful in 2026.  He changed courses and took two high level transfers.  And your takeaway is one sentence of the article that suggests that he ain't changing, last season wasn't an issue with the process it was a one year blip.

This after complaining constantly about who he hired and positions he didn't create.

Maybe look at everything he's done this offseason and trust that he realizes he messed up last season.  Look at his career as a head coach and realize he's a successful high major coach.

I know you went all in on him not being able to move away from RGV without changing jobs, not being able to take transfers if he's "a man of his word," and now that he's proven you wrong with that (or proven to be someone who won't live up to his word) everything has to be criticized, but he's proving that he's been willing to adjust and continue to compete at a high level.

Will we compete for a BE title next year?  We'll see.  But if we land Crowdis, then really the only big hole left is depth at the 5, and Shaka had that until somebody wildly overpaid for that depth piece we had to bring him to his hometown.  I can't find fault in Shaka for not overpaying to keep him.  We want Marquette to play the portal game.  We can't expect Marquette players not to play the portal game too.

#bareminimum offseason

[withoutbias]

#bareminimum offseason

You would've preferred he did what else?

We paid minimum $5MM to keep our best players and $3.5MM in the portal.  Our top 5 players will be getting $8.5MM minimum.  That's leaving $6.5MM for the rest of the 10 roster spots.  No good players are transferring into Marquette for under $1MM and to be a backup unless you get your golf partner to pony the eff up and pay guys $2MM to come off our bench.  So the failure of an offseason is on you.

[panda]

You would've preferred he did what else?

We paid minimum $5MM to keep our best players and $3.5MM in the portal.  Our top 5 players will be getting $8.5MM minimum.  That's leaving $6.5MM for the rest of the 10 roster spots.  No good players are transferring into Marquette for under $1MM and to be a backup unless you get your golf partner to pony the eff up and pay guys $2MM to come off our bench.  So the failure of an offseason is on you.

#fakenews #lies

And anyone with a pulse and the ability to tie their shoes are better than our two back up bigs. Too many people making excuses for mediocrity

[brewcity77]

Maybe look at everything he's done this offseason and trust that he realizes he messed up last season.  Look at his career as a head coach and realize he's a successful high major coach.

I am looking at everything. He got Fru and Minessale right. But that's all he got right.

He missed on Riley when we needed back court depth and instead of pivoting, they...did nothing. Love to see Crowdis be instant impact, but I've seen the last minute unranked freshman flier and generally speaking they haven't worked out.

We lost Pearson and did...nothing. It wasn't even mentioned in the article about changing our approach in the portal. No bigs brought in to replace him. I get why we lost him and I don't think matching was the right move. But we're setting up for more meaningful minutes from Hamilton and Clark and we saw how well that worked. If we get in on a reclass 2027 big will that fix it? Maybe, but so far we've gotten nothing from reclass freshman bigs, so I'm skeptical there.

We lost Haynes and Nevada. Aside from Marquette creating the Haynes problem with a social media blunder (the investigation into Haynes happened directly because of #inaccurate so good job social media guy getting an assistant fired), the communication there was incredibly poor. They posted Haynes job before any announcement he was leaving and when it was announced, it was clear from social media that his family wasn't expecting that. Anyone notice that Haynes didn't thank any of admin or staff in his departure note? Then they replace him by giving one of Shaka's old friends a lifeline after he got fired? In a time when you want to see new ideas in the room, they did the opposite. I hope Ballard is as good developing talent as Haynes was, but I'm skeptical of that. Maybe Haynes was going to be dismissed regardless, but that doesn't change that they mishandled it badly from the jump.

When Nevada left, it was clear we needed to fill the offensive hole. The plan was that Ballard was to help with defense and Nevada's replacement would be for offense. Then they take a month to fill it (presumably because their top options all said no) and land on an unknown guy from a single bid league who is also a defensive guy?

The reality is we came up short in the portal. There are still guys out there that would help but we aren't kicking any of those tires, instead falling back to the unknown freshman route that got us in this situation in the first place. We came up short in the coaching search. We went from elite developer/elite offensive guru to a pair of defensive guys from lower tier leagues. Ballard never had a top-5 defense in CUSA while at FIU. Crawford's years at USA they ranked 9/1/3 in Sun Belt defense. A bit better, but hardly "we need that guy at a high-major" stuff. No one is going to confuse him with Luke Yaklich.

Shaka did well finding a fit with Fru, was coerced into taking Minessale, and other than that seems to have whiffed on everything else since the season ended.

[BrewCity83]

Shaka did well finding a fit with Fru, was coerced into taking Minessale, and other than that seems to have whiffed on everything else since the season ended.

"Coerced"?  Please explain.

[withoutbias]

I am looking at everything. He got Fru and Minessale right. But that's all he got right.

He missed on Riley when we needed back court depth and instead of pivoting, they...did nothing. Love to see Crowdis be instant impact, but I've seen the last minute unranked freshman flier and generally speaking they haven't worked out.

We lost Pearson and did...nothing. It wasn't even mentioned in the article about changing our approach in the portal. No bigs brought in to replace him. I get why we lost him and I don't think matching was the right move. But we're setting up for more meaningful minutes from Hamilton and Clark and we saw how well that worked. If we get in on a reclass 2027 big will that fix it? Maybe, but so far we've gotten nothing from reclass freshman bigs, so I'm skeptical there.

We lost Haynes and Nevada. Aside from Marquette creating the Haynes problem with a social media blunder (the investigation into Haynes happened directly because of #inaccurate so good job social media guy getting an assistant fired), the communication there was incredibly poor. They posted Haynes job before any announcement he was leaving and when it was announced, it was clear from social media that his family wasn't expecting that. Anyone notice that Haynes didn't thank any of admin or staff in his departure note? Then they replace him by giving one of Shaka's old friends a lifeline after he got fired? In a time when you want to see new ideas in the room, they did the opposite. I hope Ballard is as good developing talent as Haynes was, but I'm skeptical of that. Maybe Haynes was going to be dismissed regardless, but that doesn't change that they mishandled it badly from the jump.

When Nevada left, it was clear we needed to fill the offensive hole. The plan was that Ballard was to help with defense and Nevada's replacement would be for offense. Then they take a month to fill it (presumably because their top options all said no) and land on an unknown guy from a single bid league who is also a defensive guy?

The reality is we came up short in the portal. There are still guys out there that would help but we aren't kicking any of those tires, instead falling back to the unknown freshman route that got us in this situation in the first place. We came up short in the coaching search. We went from elite developer/elite offensive guru to a pair of defensive guys from lower tier leagues. Ballard never had a top-5 defense in CUSA while at FIU. Crawford's years at USA they ranked 9/1/3 in Sun Belt defense. A bit better, but hardly "we need that guy at a high-major" stuff. No one is going to confuse him with Luke Yaklich.

Shaka did well finding a fit with Fru, was coerced into taking Minessale, and other than that seems to have whiffed on everything else since the season ended.

A lot of words to say "a solid, but not spectacular, offseason."

No sh!t Haynes isn't going to thank the staff and administration.  The guy got fired.  Who cares about his social media post?

Shaka should've hired you as GM and let you build the coaching staff.  You clearly know roster building and staff evaluation much better than him.

[brewcity77]

Shaka should've hired you as GM and let you build the coaching staff.  You clearly know roster building and staff evaluation much better than him.

You're right. He absolutely should've hired a GM and this article just underscored that. That was another failure and I'm glad you pointed it out. I made my recommendation (Matthew Winick) but was told they don't need a GM because the staff can already do what a GM would do.

Then they missed their top bench guard option, didn't adjust, and lost their top bench big option and again didn't adjust.

But we don't have a GM, so it's no real surprise that we weren't prepared to move nimbly in the portal when our roster situation didn't work out as planned.

[GoldenWarrior11]

Haynes have a new job yet?

[Tha Hound]

I am looking at everything. He got Fru and Minessale right. But that's all he got right.

He missed on Riley when we needed back court depth and instead of pivoting, they...did nothing. Love to see Crowdis be instant impact, but I've seen the last minute unranked freshman flier and generally speaking they haven't worked out.

We lost Pearson and did...nothing. It wasn't even mentioned in the article about changing our approach in the portal. No bigs brought in to replace him. I get why we lost him and I don't think matching was the right move. But we're setting up for more meaningful minutes from Hamilton and Clark and we saw how well that worked. If we get in on a reclass 2027 big will that fix it? Maybe, but so far we've gotten nothing from reclass freshman bigs, so I'm skeptical there.

We lost Haynes and Nevada. Aside from Marquette creating the Haynes problem with a social media blunder (the investigation into Haynes happened directly because of #inaccurate so good job social media guy getting an assistant fired), the communication there was incredibly poor. They posted Haynes job before any announcement he was leaving and when it was announced, it was clear from social media that his family wasn't expecting that. Anyone notice that Haynes didn't thank any of admin or staff in his departure note? Then they replace him by giving one of Shaka's old friends a lifeline after he got fired? In a time when you want to see new ideas in the room, they did the opposite. I hope Ballard is as good developing talent as Haynes was, but I'm skeptical of that. Maybe Haynes was going to be dismissed regardless, but that doesn't change that they mishandled it badly from the jump.

When Nevada left, it was clear we needed to fill the offensive hole. The plan was that Ballard was to help with defense and Nevada's replacement would be for offense. Then they take a month to fill it (presumably because their top options all said no) and land on an unknown guy from a single bid league who is also a defensive guy?

The reality is we came up short in the portal. There are still guys out there that would help but we aren't kicking any of those tires, instead falling back to the unknown freshman route that got us in this situation in the first place. We came up short in the coaching search. We went from elite developer/elite offensive guru to a pair of defensive guys from lower tier leagues. Ballard never had a top-5 defense in CUSA while at FIU. Crawford's years at USA they ranked 9/1/3 in Sun Belt defense. A bit better, but hardly "we need that guy at a high-major" stuff. No one is going to confuse him with Luke Yaklich.

Shaka did well finding a fit with Fru, was coerced into taking Minessale, and other than that seems to have whiffed on everything else since the season ended.

I don't think its all doom and gloom, and I think we'll be a decent to good team next year, but there are a TON of question marks surrounding this team that you sum up well.

It is malpractice to be counting Hamilton/Clark for non-mop up minutes again next year. It's confouding that we haven't brought in any back up guards post-Riley. Honestly can't say much in particular about the coaching changes but there's certainly been somewhat of an overhaul.

There is still time to rectify the roster choices, and I hope they do. But I haven't seen anything that points to them working on it.

I would hate to have another promising season cut short because we don't properly stock the roster in the offseason.

[jfp61]

brew, you are being kind to one of the former staff members.


They don't need a GM, for acquisition purposes, they just need to be more diligent in there self scouting process.

And I'm more doom and gloom than the rest of these lot

[brewcity77]

I don't think its all doom and gloom, and I think we'll be a decent to good team next year, but there are a TON of question marks surrounding this team that you sum up well.

It's not all doom and gloom, but we need to stay healthy and need to hope brain drain doesn't hold us back. Extended periods of missed games by NJ or Fru would be killers. Many teams would say the same of stars, but if you have the bench pieces to offset those losses, it's more survivable. Just look at Michigan with LJ Cason & Yaxel Lendebourg both getting injured late in the year.

[withoutbias]

You're right. He absolutely should've hired a GM and this article just underscored that. That was another failure and I'm glad you pointed it out. I made my recommendation (Matthew Winick) but was told they don't need a GM because the staff can already do what a GM would do.

Then they missed their top bench guard option, didn't adjust, and lost their top bench big option and again didn't adjust.

But we don't have a GM, so it's no real surprise that we weren't prepared to move nimbly in the portal when our roster situation didn't work out as planned.

Yeah. We know. You said he should be fired after last year because nobody recovers when they're on the hot seat and the next bad year they're gone anyway, and you think Shaka should've been on the hot seat. And you said heads should roll if they don't hire a GM.

It's crazy to me you haven't been tasked with running major marketing firms, major college athletic departments, and major basketball programs. You have all of the answers, and those who don't follow your plans are absolutely clueless and negligent in their jobs.

[willie warrior]

I am looking at everything. He got Fru and Minessale right. But that's all he got right.

He missed on Riley when we needed back court depth and instead of pivoting, they...did nothing. Love to see Crowdis be instant impact, but I've seen the last minute unranked freshman flier and generally speaking they haven't worked out.

We lost Pearson and did...nothing. It wasn't even mentioned in the article about changing our approach in the portal. No bigs brought in to replace him. I get why we lost him and I don't think matching was the right move. But we're setting up for more meaningful minutes from Hamilton and Clark and we saw how well that worked. If we get in on a reclass 2027 big will that fix it? Maybe, but so far we've gotten nothing from reclass freshman bigs, so I'm skeptical there.

We lost Haynes and Nevada. Aside from Marquette creating the Haynes problem with a social media blunder (the investigation into Haynes happened directly because of #inaccurate so good job social media guy getting an assistant fired), the communication there was incredibly poor. They posted Haynes job before any announcement he was leaving and when it was announced, it was clear from social media that his family wasn't expecting that. Anyone notice that Haynes didn't thank any of admin or staff in his departure note? Then they replace him by giving one of Shaka's old friends a lifeline after he got fired? In a time when you want to see new ideas in the room, they did the opposite. I hope Ballard is as good developing talent as Haynes was, but I'm skeptical of that. Maybe Haynes was going to be dismissed regardless, but that doesn't change that they mishandled it badly from the jump.

When Nevada left, it was clear we needed to fill the offensive hole. The plan was that Ballard was to help with defense and Nevada's replacement would be for offense. Then they take a month to fill it (presumably because their top options all said no) and land on an unknown guy from a single bid league who is also a defensive guy?

The reality is we came up short in the portal. There are still guys out there that would help but we aren't kicking any of those tires, instead falling back to the unknown freshman route that got us in this situation in the first place. We came up short in the coaching search. We went from elite developer/elite offensive guru to a pair of defensive guys from lower tier leagues. Ballard never had a top-5 defense in CUSA while at FIU. Crawford's years at USA they ranked 9/1/3 in Sun Belt defense. A bit better, but hardly "we need that guy at a high-major" stuff. No one is going to confuse him with Luke Yaklich.

Shaka did well finding a fit with Fru, was coerced into taking Minessale, and other than that seems to have whiffed on everything else since the season ended.

Problem is that many here keep calling us a high major. We aren't anymore. Last year proved it. Hell, we can't even hang with Dayton. And this is all on Shaka.