New Golden Eagle Kinda Outta Nowhere Alert!
Head coach Shaka Smart has a new face for his 2026-27 roster in point guard Colton Crowdis, who has committed to play for Marquette in the fall. Crowdis is coming in as a freshman and will have four years of eligibility.
The first I heard of Marquette having an interest in the 6’4” Canadian point guard that was at Bridgton Academy in Maine this past season was….. on May 8 when this tweet was shared in the group
chat:
Yep. May. Of 2026. When Class of 2026 players could commit and sign back in November of 2025. When the spring signing period for Class of 2026 prospects opened up in mid-April. May. Uh huh.
Here’s what I’m thinking is going on: Crowdis was always a 2026 prospect, and all of the tweets I can find mentioning him back to last summer back that up. Along the way, he wasn’t particularly thrilled with the Division 1 options that were sending him scholarship offers, and he started leaning towards taking a post-graduate year at Bridgton and resetting the deck a year from now…. and then guys like Marquette assistant Cody Hatt were making phone calls with their New England prep school contacts, and ta-da, interest from Marquette, St. John’s, and Providence even though Crowdis could have committed and signed somewhere else long before now.
That raises a separate question of why Hatt and his NEPSAC contacts didn’t have Marquette interested in Crowdis long before now, but that’s a different issue. Heck, if the plan for Crowdis involves him coming in and redshirting the 2026-27 season, then that all makes sense relative to Marquette’s interest. I can’t say I possibly see him coming in and being a real contributor from Day 1 this November.
Then again….
At some point, 20/7/7/3 steals has to mean something, right?
He did what against #1 Blair Academy?
Okay, look, I’m not a fan of the dribble stepback shots or the hurking it up from extra long distance, especially since I don’t have shooting data for Crowdis or context for those shots, but if it works, it works, right?
Alrighty, let’s fire up a brand new scholarship chart.
Until/unless we’re told otherwise, Colton Crowdis goes onto the chart as a freshman this season along with Alex Egbuonu and Ethan Johnston. They’ll be joined by Ian Miletic and Nash Walker who are coming off of redshirt seasons in 2025-26, although for Walker, it was only half a season after joining the program in January.
In theory, I can see how Crowdis could fit into this year’s rotation, absorbing a few minutes at point guard, and thus creating more depth in the primary ball-handling department. At 6’4”, he would create a little bit of a different dimension to Nigel James, and I mean that literally since that’s four extra inches of point guard. If he can contribute right away at PG, that opens up possibilities as to precisely how Shaka Smart deploys Nolan Minessale in the backcourt as well. If Minessale is more of a optional creator on the court with both James and Crowdis, that pushes Marquette back in the direction of having Tyler Kolek and Kam Jones on the court together as Shaka Smart coached the squad into the Sweet 16 in 2024.
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