How we got here and how we get out.

[Hards Alumni]

Okay.  Here goes.

Here is my break down what has happened to Marquette basketball over the last three years.

It's Summer 2023.  Marquette has two NBA level players back (Oso and TyKo) after having just won the Big East when no one in the national media believed in them.  Shaka knows he's got 4-5 years to develop a player into a really good player.  He sees what he's done with Oso Ighodaro.  He knows that when Oso showed up, he wasn't a basketball player.  He was an athlete.  His logic that follows is to go get guys who are athletes with a ton of potential that he can develop into All BEAST type players like he did with Oso and to a lesser extent Omax.  As a result, Shaka grabs Sean Jones, Zaide Lowery, Tre Norman, and Al Amadou as his recruits.  Three raw athletes who play really good high school basketball, but are not college ready players yet and Sean Jones, Mr Basketball from Ohio.  This is fine since Shaka has time to develop these athletes into basketball players, and Sean should be fairly turn key.

In April of 2024 the portal becomes the absolute free for all that we see here today.  Shaka believes in himself and his players to become better in the off season because he genuinely loves his guys. 

It's now 2024 Summer .  Shaka has Kam Jones, Stevie Mitchell, and David Joplin as his seniors.  No one would argue that these three guys are elite athletes.  They're basketball players.  Shaka sees that maybe the short coming this year was that he has basketball players, but not elite athletes even though his freshman were recruited on that basis.  He recruits Damarius Owens (elite athlete), Royce Parham (basketball player), and does his best to get Kon Knueppel (both, clearly), but comes up short.  As a result, he knows he has roster availability and Al Amadou is probably not going to pan out.  Shaka gets a little bit desperate and takes a flyer on a couple of big guys who have good measurables that he hopes he can coach up and make work.

Shaka has developed players into NBA players his entire career... especially guys who no one thought would sniff the NBA when the arrived on campus.  Oso, Kolek, Omax, Kam Jones.  These guys were not NBA players before Shaka coached them up.  He looks at his guys, and believes he can get them to compete in the BEAST.  Shaka is getting high praise for not using the portal and believing in his guys.  Loyalty matters to Shaka.

It's summer 2025, and Shaka can see he doesn't have the guys to win a ton of games, but he's invested and he has to ride with the guys he has.  He's realized that his incoming recruits have a lot of potential (Nigel and Adrien are dogs, and MP2 has a shot so pretty it should hang in the Louvre, unfortunately, the rest of his game is RAW), but his athletes haven't picked up the game the way that they should.  Zaide can play individually well.  Great shooter, great athlete, great defense... as long as he doesn't have to play in a team setting.  Tre is a great kid, but makes mistakes on offense and defense repeatedly.  Turns the ball over, and makes mental errors that no junior should be making.  He plays good team defense, but something just doesn't click with him.  Sean Jones hasn't had the game slow down for him at all.  The speed he used in High School to blow past guys hasn't translated to college well, and he is shaking off 18 months of rust.  Al is long gone.  Caedin has made strides from where he started, but he started at zero.  He's not an athlete, and he's not a basketball player yet. Josh is tall.  He can use that to his advantage, and you can't teach it.  Most of these guys are lost on team defense.  Ben and Chase know what they're doing, but aren't true leaders and can't communicate on the floor well enough to fix the other guys short comings.

The season kicks off, and almost immediately the short comings observed in the off season are even more apparent.  Zaide decides he is out after being replaced by a freshman in the starting lineup.  Is Sean extremely rusty... or will he ever show the potential he had in High School?  It doesn't matter, he is hurt again and the freshman that took over is an absolute junkyard dog.  Even when Sean comes back he is on the outside looking in for playing time.  And then he is hurt again.  These project athletes aren't producing.  Sure, each of them have a couple of bright moments, but they're not ready to be playing Big East basketball.  They make mistakes, they have bad hands, don't play help defense.  They understand how basketball works, but haven't put it together to play a complete game on both sides of the ball.  Even the games that should be winnable fall apart due to poor shooting, team defense, lack of communication, and mental mistakes. 

Shaka went with too many athletes in two years, and too many projects as well.  And then refused to cut bait with any of them even though it wasn't working.  This team is the result.  Too many projects and athletes (Zaide, Tre, Caedin, Damarius, Josh) injuries (Sean) and weak senior leadership from Chase and Ben.  This is the result.  We have a couple of bright spots (Nigel, Adrien, Royce, MP2) that we can build on, and a TON of question marks (Sheek, Ian, Nash). 

College Basketball success is built on the backs of really good basketball players.  It helps a lot when they're elite athletes, but they need to be basketball players first.  Bad basketball can be hidden by athleticism for a time.  The third intangible factor is competitiveness.  Basically, what I'm getting at is you need two of these three unmeasurables (A,B,Cs!) to be a successful college basketball player.  (To be an NBA player you need plus level talent in two of these, and proficiency in all three)

1. Athlete - Obvious, but this can hide other short comings from B and C.
2. Basketball player - BB IQ, great shot, fundamental understanding of how the game works, crafty with the ball in their hands
3. Competitive - Needs to win, gym rat, pushes others to be better versions of themselves

We've got a couple of As, a couple of Bs, and only one who obviously has all three.  I'm sure each of you could correctly assign ABCs to each of our players on the roster.

I'm very high on Nigel.  I'm sure everyone is.  Hopefully he is high on Marquette.  Adrien is a keeper (A, B, jury out on C), as is Royce (B, C).  I'm great with Michael Phillips (A, B) and have high hopes for his development.  Personally, I think Sheek is going to be really good.  He's very thin, but a year and a half of diet and exercise at this level should pay dividends for next year.  I think Shaka needs a hard reset on what defense is expected from the team.  A move back to what made his first couple of years successful.

Okay, enough rambling.  This dissertation is long enough.  Apologies for spelling and grammar, or if I got dates a little wrong.  You get the point.

To me, it's clear that there needs to be an off season of changes.  Without a couple, we are looking at another rough year in 26-27.  Relationships are great, but without the Growth or Victory what is the point? 

[Pakuni]

This is a really good take.
One minor quibble ... I think Oso was a much better basketball player, and not just an athlete, when he arrived at MU. If you watch some of his high school tape, you'd see high-level passing and handles for a player his size.

[Hards Alumni]

This is a really good take.
One minor quibble ... I think Oso was a much better basketball player, and not just an athlete, when he arrived at MU. If you watch some of his high school tape, you'd see high-level passing and handles for a player his size.

That's fair, but he still can't shoot. 

[wadesworld]

The biggest thing the portal can address is getting grown men who are proven good basketball players.  Shaka needs to add a few this offseason, and going forward he needs to fill the holes in the roster with them.

The Nova game at home was winnable, but a soon to be 24 year old, former 5 star Kentucky recruit hurt us a lot in the second half.  St. John's we were never going to win, but again there is a soon to be 24 year old, former 5 star Kentucky recruit on their roster.

We thought that we'd stop seeing 23-25 year olds in college athletics after all of the Covid kids were out of college.  But now anybody is eligible.  It's hard to win with 18-22 year olds that you recruit as sub top 100 recruits and try to develop when you're facing 24 year olds who were top 15 recruits.

I'm on board with a roster of mostly high school recruits that you develop, but Shaka has to start hitting on these higher talent recruits he's in on but not landing.  And then he needs to understand the flaws in the roster and address them through the portal.  It doesn't take a new roster every year, just a new guy here and there.

I trust Shaka will adjust.  He's a competitive guy and a good coach.  He was just voted a top 40 "Leader in Sports" by the Athletic, and the quote they had for him was from Bruce Bowen: "What I admire is Shaka's persistence in never being satisfied with where he is until it's better. It's not easy to connect with kids whose ideas of what the game is today may not shape up to be the same as the head coach, but Shaka continues to find a way to connect and enhance along the way."

He misplayed his hand this year.  I trust he'll adjust his strategy moving forward.

[Scoop Snoop]

He misplayed his hand this year.  I trust he'll adjust his strategy moving forward.

Nice post. I no longer have faith in Shaka but respect your well-worded, logical post defending him.

I disagree with the bolded though. This is not a one-year misplaying of his hand in my opinion. This year we have seen the team that he has been building for multiple years. I think framing it as a one-year event is another way of calling it this "just one bad year".

Again-I respect your opinion, but unlike the last few years when you and I (and Vander) often exchanged "likes", I now believe Shaka needs to leave. That is unlikely, but going forward, a 6th place finish in the BE next year and I think he will be given at least 2 more years, but I also think our high-flying days under Shaka are in the past and will not return.   

[connie]

My worry/disagreement is that this was not a one year miss. Every point made about Shaka needing to adjust in the summer of 26 applied to the summer of 25.  The signs were there down the stretch of last season when Kam was getting shut down and no other consistent options emerged.  Hards is correct in that the deficiencies this year were obvious early.  Shaka should have seen them and adjusted earlier.

[Hards Alumni]

My worry/disagreement is that this was not a one year miss. Every point made about Shaka needing to adjust in the summer of 26 applied to the summer of 25.  The signs were there down the stretch of last season when Kam was getting shut down and no other consistent options emerged.  Hards is correct in that the deficiencies this year were obvious early.  Shaka should have seen them and adjusted earlier.

Yeah probably.  But he believed he could coach these guys out of it for the last 12 months.  Obviously, he was wrong.  Now the rubber meets the road and we find out if he is willing to do what needs to be done to right the ship.

[tower912]

There has been something rolling around in my head this season.  Wojo could not attract an impact guard while Markus was at MU.

Shaka did not land an impact recruit while there was no immediate playing time available.

[jfp61]

Shaka has let too many guys fail upwards. He is confusing long relationships, with good relationships.

[connie]

Shaka has let too many guys fail upwards. He is confusing long relationships, with good relationships.

So Shaka is in a toxic relationship with the guys he recruited?  I can see that.  Bad idea in the NIL era.

[MU82]

I'm on board with a roster of mostly high school recruits that you develop, but Shaka has to start hitting on these higher talent recruits he's in on but not landing.  And then he needs to understand the flaws in the roster and address them through the portal.  It doesn't take a new roster every year, just a new guy here and there.

This is it in a nutshell IMHO. It's basically the Painter/Izzo blueprint.

I trust Shaka will adjust. I trust he'll adjust his strategy moving forward.

I think he'll adjust. I sure as heck hope so. We'll see!

Also ...

Hards, good OP.

[Galway Eagle]

I think this is a great synopsis but it started earlier than you're giving credit for. It started the year prior when Justin caught them off guard (Shakas words) by leaving early and Gregg grad transferred. Rather than get guys he dug his heels in and ran with the young returnees and swept the BE championships. It started spring 2022.

[tower912]

It started with a championship with players they developed.  So they adopted a developmental model after being successful developing underappreciated players.   They recruited players they thought would develop in the same way.