The transfer portal opened up for men’s college basketball on Monday, and according to Noted Spreadsheet Reader Jeff Goodman, there’s over 700 Division 1 players looking for a new home for next season. The portal opened at 5:46 AM ET this morning with the addition of North Florida's Jaylen Smith. About 14 hours later, there have been 716 D-1 men's basketball players added.— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 24, 2025 Marquette men’s basketball loses three senior starters — Kam Jones, David Joplin, and Stevie Mitchell — off a roster that went 23-11 and exited the NCAA tournament following a first round loss to New Mexico. If that is all you know about Marquette men’s basketball, I can see why your gut instict should/would/could be that “well, Marquette’s going to/needs to go get some guys in the transfer portal.” Here’s the thing about that. We’ll start with the freshly updated scholarship chart, as now that the season is over, we can officially shift Al Amadou, Josh Clark, and Sean Jones to redshirt status for 2024-25. Marquette had 13 scholarship spots in 2024-25, and all 13 were used. As long as the House settlement officially goes into effect for the 2025-26 school year — I am not a lawyer and you will need one to explain what the chances of the settlement not getting finalized are — the roster limit goes up to 15. You can do whatever you want with scholarship money going forward, but you can only have 15 guys on the team. With everyone expected to return and the four new freshmen signed for next fall, Marquette is sitting on a projected roster size of 14. Yes, that means there will not be walk ons in uniform next year. No, that’s not the main point here. The main point is this: The last two years, Shaka Smart was on the verge of going into the season with an available and open scholarship spot and then added a project big man late in the cycle to just sit out and redshirt their first season on campus both times. First Caedin Hamilton, then Josh Clark. I don’t know how to say this other than to say it: Expecting Shaka Smart to use his 15th roster spot on an incoming transfer just to do it seems to cut against the grain of how he’s been running things. And so, if it seems unlikely that he would use the last roster spot on a transfer because he could have the last two years and did not, there’s an obvious conclusion to draw. I’m going to say the obvious part, and put it in big words for everyone to see clearly: There are not going to be any transfer portal additions for Marquette men’s basketball without transfer portal subtractions. Shaka Smart has said in the past that he’s going to prioritize developing the players that are already at Marquette, and he’s also said that if he ends up with a roster situation that would require him to use the portal, he would. Nothing about Marquette’s situation as of 7am on March 25th says that Smart is recruiting anyone in the portal to join the team for 2025-26. There’s a second thing to consider here. If, by chance, someone we’re expecting to return elects to transfer because they think their future is better somewhere else, and then it becomes logical to fill in the roster with a transfer portal player: Marquette is not going to get into a bidding war with anyone. You may have seen this somewhat deeply stupid article from Front Office Sports, running frantically around the internet howling about how Shaka Smart tells his players that they don’t need agents and he won’t negotiate with them. Here’s why the article’s stupid, and it’s right there in the second to last paragraph: Agents aren’t wholly foreign to Smart’s program. Last year, when Tyler Kolek was famous enough to garner his own marketing offers, Smart encouraged him to sign with an agent to handle off-the-court brand deals, Kolek told the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal. Kolek and Jones both appeared in a Skims campaign last year, and Jones has hawked Crush Soda on social media this year. You can’t write 600 words about how the Marquette players are being told they don’t need agents and then riiiiiiight at the very end talk about how Shaka Smart encouraged Tyler Kolek to get an agent to look out for his best interests. What are we doing here, buddy? The part where you don’t need an agent if you’re on the men’s basketball team at MU is 1) to negotiate with Marquette’s Be The Difference collective or 2) to negotiate with the school/athletic department about whatever money the House settlement allows Marquette to disperse to athletes. The collective pays what it pays, the House settlement money pays what it pays. There’s nothing to negotiate. If you don’t like it, well, too bad, and Marquette’s not the place for you. If, by chance, Marquette does need to investigate the transfer portal at some point in the future, it seems very unlikely that they’re going to be making a big splashy addition that lands them on the top of the portal recruiting class rankings. The signs are on the wall to tell us that is just not going to happen, just like they’re telling us that Marquette’s not looking to get involved in transfer recruiting at all right now.

Marquette Men's Basketball, The Transfer Portal, And You

No, that’s not the main point here. The main point is this: The last two years, Shaka Smart was on the verge of going into the season with an available and open scholarship spot and then added a project big man late in the cycle to just sit out and redshirt their first season on […]

No, that’s not the main point here. The main point is this: The last two years, Shaka Smart was on the verge of going into the season with an available and open scholarship spot and then added a project big man late in the cycle to just sit out and redshirt their first season on campus both times. First Caedin Hamilton, then Josh Clark. I don’t know how to say this other than to say it: Expecting Shaka Smart to use his 15th roster spot on an incoming transfer just to do it seems to cut against the grain of how he’s been running things.

Shaka Smart has said in the past that he’s going to prioritize developing the players that are already at Marquette, and he’s also said that if he ends up with a roster situation that would require him to use the portal, he would. Nothing about Marquette’s situation as of 7am on March 25th says that Smart is recruiting anyone in the portal to join the team for 2025-26.Marquette men’s basketball loses three senior starters — Kam Jones, David Joplin, and Stevie Mitchell — off a roster that went 23-11 and exited the NCAA tournament following a first round loss to New Mexico. If that is all you know about Marquette men’s basketball, I can see why your gut instict should/would/could be that “well, Marquette’s going to/needs to go get some guys in the transfer portal.”— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 24, 2025

With everyone expected to return and the four new freshmen signed for next fall, Marquette is sitting on a projected roster size of 14.
Agents aren’t wholly foreign to Smart’s program. Last year, when Tyler Kolek was famous enough to garner his own marketing offers, Smart encouraged him to sign with an agent to handle off-the-court brand deals, Kolek told the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal. Kolek and Jones both appeared in a Skims campaign last year, and Jones has hawked Crush Soda on social media this year.
You can’t write 600 words about how the Marquette players are being told they don’t need agents and then riiiiiiight at the very end talk about how Shaka Smart encouraged Tyler Kolek to get an agent to look out for his best interests. What are we doing here, buddy?

If, by chance, Marquette does need to investigate the transfer portal at some point in the future, it seems very unlikely that they’re going to be making a big splashy addition that lands them on the top of the portal recruiting class rankings. The signs are on the wall to tell us that is just not going to happen, just like they’re telling us that Marquette’s not looking to get involved in transfer recruiting at all right now.
You may have seen this somewhat deeply stupid article from Front Office Sports, running frantically around the internet howling about how Shaka Smart tells his players that they don’t need agents and he won’t negotiate with them. Here’s why the article’s stupid, and it’s right there in the second to last paragraph:
The transfer portal opened up for men’s college basketball on Monday, and according to Noted Spreadsheet Reader Jeff Goodman, there’s over 700 Division 1 players looking for a new home for next season.