MILWAUKEE — At a time when just about every Division I coach spends the offseason recruiting among the hundreds of players who enter the transfer portal each year, Marquette remains a throwback.
Golden Eagles coach Shaka Smart has his senior class to thank for that.
Kam Jones, David Joplin and Stevie Mitchell joined Smart at Marquette to begin their college careers as part of a class that included walk-on Cam Brown. They’ve stuck around since and have made Marquette a model of stability in a transient college basketball landscape.
Now they get to make one more NCAA Tournament run together with Marquette (23-10), which faces New Mexico (26-7) in the first round Friday in Cleveland. Marquette is the only power-conference team that hasn’t signed a transfer from another D-I school since the 2022-23 season.
“It was absolutely a conscious decision,” Smart said. “You know, a lot of people have thoughts or want to comment on the different way we do things and ask about it. We don’t have time in this setting for me to adequately explain to you why we do what we do, so I’ll give you a really short answer. We value relationships. We value growth. We value victory. Those are very basic values.
“I think most coaches would probably say that they care about those things, but it dawned on me several years ago well before I got to Marquette that a lot of us as coaches can tend to be hypocrites. When we say we value something, but then our actions demonstrate something else.”
Smart stayed loyal to the group that helped him find immediate success at Marquette, which has reached the NCAA Tournament in each of his four seasons. Only eight players have started a game for Marquette since the start of the 2022-23 season, the fewest for any D-I team.
That list includes Jones, Joplin, Mitchell, juniors Ben Gold and Chase Ross and current NBA players Oso Ighodaro, Tyler Kolek and Olivier-Maxence Prosper.
This senior class earned the nickname “the Guardians” for the way they protected Marquette’s program and maintained its winning standard. What kept any of these guys from entering the portal?
“Just our connectivity,” Mitchell said. “We just have a tight bond with each other. I couldn’t imagine telling Kam or Jop or CB that I’m going to another school. It’s the same way for them. I think when you just have that, it’s not even a thought that crosses your mind.”
Mitchell and Jones had committed to Marquette in summer 2020 when Steve Wojciechowski was still coaching the team, and they decided to stick around after Smart took over.
“We’re really, really fortunate in that Coach Wojo and staff brought in Stevie Mitchell and Kam Jones,” Smart said. “Those guys were signed when I got the job here. And then we’re fortunate that those guys didn’t do what most people do when there’s a coaching change, and say, ‘Hey, I’m out of here. I’m going somewhere else.’ That was during the COVID year when I couldn’t even go on a plane to go visit them because there was a recruiting restriction. Sometimes you get lucky.”
They’ve all made major contributions.
Jones, an Associated Press All-America second-team selection, has scored in double figures in 49 straight games, the longest streak in D-I. He has 2,029 career points to rank behind only Markus Howard in school history.
The 6-foot-5 guard says he appreciates that Smart didn’t go into the portal looking for upgrades and instead chose to build from within.
“We’ve really taken on his personality as a team, and that’s one of the main things I love about this group,” Jones said. “Yeah, we all love each other. We spend a lot of time with each other. It’s a very high level, so knowing that coach isn’t just necessarily going in the portal just fishing, that gives us the confidence and the continuity to go after it as a team and come together and make each other stronger.”
Mitchell is one of 10 semifinalists for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Award. He also won the Big East scholar-athlete of the year award as a double-major in finance and information systems with a 3.97 grade-point average.
Marquette’s first-round game with New Mexico will be the 139th Joplin has played for the Golden Eagles, enabling him to break Lazar Hayward’s school record.
Brown also has played a major role.
During first-half timeouts, Smart generally lets players talk among themselves. In the past, one of the team’s top players led those conversations. This season, Brown has often filled that role.
Brown is such a good communicator that Smart offered him a graduate-assistant position.
“He’ll be the one of those four Guardians that we won’t lose,” Smart said.
All the talent Marquette loses this offseason could challenge Smart’s approach to the portal.
“It’s definitely going to stress test our way of doing things,” Smart said. “I tend to err on the side of really, really pouring into the guys we have and focusing on them. … So yes, we believe in our way of doing things.”
AP’s Will Graves in Cleveland contributed.
