Path to Success 2025-26 in 2026: Rotations

[Billy Hoyle]

This is a brutal take.

If someone was brought in here in 2021 with the express intent to bring Marquette a Big East Championship, BET title, and multiple 2 seeds in his first 4 seasons we would all be laughing our asses off that it's a complete joke.

Shaka did that. There is likely no one else they could have brought in that would have done that. I know I know "you don't know that for a fact... there are plenty of capable hires..." blah blah.

What the man did to the basketball program as a new hire in his first 4 seasons was way beyond what we could have dreamed of.

How in Gods green Earth could you turn on that so quickly?

then what was Shaka brought in to do? Just make us competitive? Be Wojo II? Hasn't every MU coach been brought in to win titles and make the tourney? We're Marquette, basketball is as important to our school as any, especially in this new era of college sports.

In MLB arbitration hearings, salaries are determined by predicted future performance, not past performance. Shaka, and every coach, should be judged more on where the program is going (as was correctly done with Mike Deane, despite averaging 20 wins a year, 1 CUSA tourney title, two NCAA appearances, and a NIT finals appearance). Sorry, 2025-26 likely being the worst season in MU history does not get ignored because of 2022-23 and 2023-24. NC State fired Kerry Keats the year after beating us and going to the Final Four!

Are MU's leaders really going to say, "Don't worry about the 20+ losses and multiple 20-point blowout losses, you won a Big East title three years ago." If they do maybe MU isn't as serious about basketball as we thought.

[The Equalizer]

Seeing whether they can cut it now against Big East competition is only useful if:

1. You believe it's fair and useful to judge players who've played zero competitive minutes for nearly a year by throwing them in the deep end against older opponents who've been playing for 3+ months.
2. You believe Shaka believes that's a fair and useful way to judge players.
3. You believe Shaka would cut a player who fails to prove he can cut it against Big East competition by being inserted into the lineup midseason with no prior game experience.

If you believe any of the above, you haven't been paying attention.

On the other hand, we knew almost instantly that Niv Berkowitz wasn't going to be a high-major D1 player--and not just the first year because he started playing mid-season against older and more experienced opponents.

I trust Shaka would be able to judge a player's future in that context, just like Crean was able to judge Berkowitz (correctly, I believe).

Whether I think it's fair or if I believe Shaka would do so is irrelevant. The question was whether there is any value in playing these guys now, and if a coach can expose another Berkowitz, then yes, there is some value.

[Vander Blue Man Group]

It seems extremely dumb to me, especially in this brave new world of college basketball, to recruit and pay guys who don't have the physicality or skills to help you right away.  When has Marquette *ever* had three non-injured players redshirting during the same season?  I mean, teams are signing NBA draft picks mid-season while we have three 18 year olds contributing nothing to the current roster other than "pouring into each other" and "getting lost in the fight" in practice, where it has been said the players are way ahead of where they are in games because they "fly around" or something.  What genius thought redshirting three guys in a single year would be a good idea?

And, as someone already mentioned, it's extremely dumb not to recognize the new scholarship limit. 

The issue is not the # of redshirts.  The issue is that the senior class doesn't have an All Big-East level player or anyone able to carry the team and the junior class is a complete bust. 

The problem is not having some guys that are redshirting. 

Also, it would be extremely dumb to compare the redshirts of Miletic and Pearson to those of Clark and Hamilton as they were wanted by other high-major programs. 

[Vander Blue Man Group]

There actually is a benefit--you get to see how these guys perform against Big East level competition now rather than waiting until next season. 

If they aren't going to cut it in the Big East, I'd rather know now when there's still a chance to reuse those roster slots in the current recruiting cycle. 

We need all the help we can get next season. Taking three chances to bring in game-changing talent off the table simply because the current redshirts might want to keep their options open in 2030 is not in MU's best interest.

That's nonsensical.  If they were ready to be productive against Big East-level they wouldn't be redshirting.

Yet you want to throw them out there on a horrendous team and into a situation where the likelihood of failure is high.

That's not productive and believing you'll be able to identify how they'll be able to perform at this level based on limited minutes over 17  more games is ludicrous. 

We don't need 8 open scholarships to field a much better team next season. 

This coming from a portion of the fanbase that would be fine fine jettisoning Oso and TK early in their careers. 

Some of you need to go back and take another round of Logic at Marquette.

[Vander Blue Man Group]

then what was Shaka brought in to do? Just make us competitive? Be Wojo II? Hasn't every MU coach been brought in to win titles and make the tourney? We're Marquette, basketball is as important to our school as any, especially in this new era of college sports.

In MLB arbitration hearings, salaries are determined by predicted future performance, not past performance. Shaka, and every coach, should be judged more on where the program is going (as was correctly done with Mike Deane, despite averaging 20 wins a year, 1 CUSA tourney title, two NCAA appearances, and a NIT finals appearance). Sorry, 2025-26 likely being the worst season in MU history does not get ignored because of 2022-23 and 2023-24. NC State fired Kerry Keats the year after beating us and going to the Final Four!

Are MU's leaders really going to say, "Don't worry about the 20+ losses and multiple 20-point blowout losses, you won a Big East title three years ago." If they do maybe MU isn't as serious about basketball as we thought.

Kerry Keats was fired because, in spite of one miraculous run, he was Wojo-esque.  3 tourney appearances in 8 years with no other wins besides what was very obviously a complete outlier.  It's bad comparison.