Earlier this week, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports sat down with Marquette Golden Eagles head coach Shaka Smart to talk about the upcoming 2023-2024 basketball season. Marquette was the regular season champion of the Big East Conference and the Big East Conference tournament champion a season ago. The Golden Eagles are ranked fifth in the country in the AP Poll before the 2023-2024 regular season begins.
The regular season begins on November 6 against the Northern Illinois Huskies, and conference play will begin on December 22 against the Georgetown Hoyas. They hope to have the same success as they did a season ago.
Greetings from Milwaukee. Here for Marquette practice. Year 3 of the Shaka Smart era. pic.twitter.com/ieGe17aM50
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) October 17, 2023
Marquette fell short of the second weekend in the NCAA Tournament last spring after getting bounced against the Michigan State Spartans. He told Jon Rothstein:
“College basketball is so unique. Those of us that are in it-we eat, sleep, and breathe it every day. But every March we’re reminded that it’s infinitely more important for the average fan during that month than it is the rest of the year. Now, that’s cool for us too because it’s like you’re at a get together and there’s five people there and then there’s five thousand. I think the flip side of that is your regular season can be overshawdowed by the postseason if you let it. We choose to evaluate the successes and the failures from last season with a growth mindset. It’s easy to do that because we have a lot of the players and coaches back from that team. We’re certainly very driven and motivated by the fact that we didn’t play at our best in the last game of the year.”
There will be a lot of returning players this season on Marquette’s team this season. Tyler Kolek, a senior point guard on the roster, is the reigning Big East Player of the Year. He is looking to win the award for the second consecutive season.
Marquette Golden Eagles Head Coach Shaka Smart Will Have a Very Good Roster This Season
The Marquette Golden Eagles will have a very good roster this season, along with Kolek. Smart is very happy about the players that are returning to the program this season. A couple of other key players that are coming back along with senior point guard Tyler Kolek are guards Kam Jones (junior) and Chase Ross (sophomore).
Senior forward Oso Ighodaro, junior forward David Joplin, and junior guard Stevie Mitchell will be some other players who will contribute to the Golden Eagles this season. Smart added thoughts to Jon Rothstein about the roster this upcoming season:
“All of our guys that are returning are a year older, a year better, and a year wiser. We have three incoming freshmen that are going to play and one incoming freshman that’s going to redshirt. Personnel wise, our team is different. We don’t have Olivier-Maxence Prosper, who was a critical piece. The way that we play will be somewhat similar, but there will be some small tweaks that we make based on personnel changes. Our imagination for what our team can be on either end of the floor is different than what it was a year ago.”
The Marquette Golden Eagles having an older roster will be a good thing for this season because the Big East Competition is going to be brutal out of the gates. Marquette is going to have stack-up wins out of conference before the lights turn on.
