College sports in America has been dealing with a wave of changes, especially on the part where the players get compensated better. This includes the NIL deals and the transfer portal. Marquette Golden Eagles refuse to be pushed back by that.
The transfer portal season came and went and head coach Shaka Smart and his crew did not welcome anyone unlike other programs. What’s interesting about it is they also do not have a lot of player who decide to leave them to look for opportunity elsewhere.
Al Amadou shocked the Marquette community months ago when he became the first player since the 2022-23 season to enter the transfer portal.
Retention and development is what Marquette is known for and Smart said they will stand by it amid the changes that are happening. He also expressed his faith to the players who are still with them.
“It’s definitely going to stress-test our way of doing things. I tend to err on the side of really, really pouring into the guys we have and focusing on them,” he added.
“There’s a lot of reasons behind that that, again, we don’t necessarily have time to get into now. So, yes, we believe in our way of doing things.”
Shaka Smart on why they are keeping recruitment tradition
Smart said that basketball is the one affected the most in the new system that college sports has adopted. He used the current climate to better articulate that.
College athletics has undergone a major shift, not just in basketball, but I’d argue the effect on basketball has been more significant than in other sports. There are student-athletes, not just in basketball, that literally spend each year of their college career at a different college or university.
Marquette is different and Smart said their decision to keep have former players in the long haul is like rewarding those who have worn it already. He also explained that it makes it easier for them to develop their system and the players as well.
“Once you start bringing in a bunch of transfers, it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It impacts your roster and your program,” he shared.
“We have made a decision and a commitment to the guys in our program. Yes, we could have gone in the transfer portal and recruited some guys, but we feel like it would have stunted their growth. We feel if we value growth, that would be a contradiction, and we believe that we can be a lot better than people think without taking transfers.”
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