The 2025-26 Marquette men’s basketball season is in the rear view mirror after Wednesday night’s 89-87 loss to Xavier in the first round of the Big East tournament, and so our eyes turn to the future for head coach Shaka Smart and the program that he guides. It’s going to be a very interesting offseason, and we already know that to be the case because of the messaging that Smart and athletic director Mike Broeker distributed to the world by way of a TNT Sports broadcast.
But before we get to that,
I want to make a point about Smart’s tenure as head coach that I’ve been pretty set on in my head for more than a minute here.
When it comes to the general guideline of success for Marquette men’s basketball, my baseline is “make the NCAA tournament every year.” On the positive side of that line is every so often, you catch lightning in a bottle and you’re competing for a Big East championship, ranked top 10 in the country, and considered to be a contender for the national championship. That’s a rare case, not an expectation. That’s something that’s going to happen to you here and there when you make the field of 68 year in and year out.
“Make the NCAA tournament every year” doesn’t mean I’m a hardliner on “miss and the season’s a complete failure,” though. Just like every so often you’re going to rise to the top of the rankings, you’re going to have a the occasional year where something goes sideways on you and you miss the tournament. You just get caught outside the bubble because your point guard misses six weeks in the middle of the season, and you end up named First Four Out on Selection Sunday. Oops, things happen, not every season is perfect, and so on. Nothing to really worry about, back at it next year, and so on.
2025-26 is the first season since he was hired at Marquette that Shaka Smart will not coach in the NCAA tournament. He got his first team that wasn’t expected to be much to a #9 seed, then back-to-back #2 seeds, the two best seeds in program history, and then a #7 seed a year ago. This season is his first miss as the Golden Eagles finish the year at 12-20 and were effectively eliminated from tournament contention by New Year’s Day.
Turning in a second straight missed NCAA tournament in March 2027 should be the end of Shaka Smart’s tenure as head coach at Marquette.
This season was very, very bad. Some things about this — Sean Jones’ health! — were out of Shaka Smart’s control. Some things about this — Caedin Hamilton started 17 times! Zaide Lowery quit the team! The team shot under 32% on threes! — were more in Smart’s control. The end result of all of it is that Marquette played the last two months of the season with everyone knowing that the NCAA tournament was already out of reach, and the fact that a 7-13 record in league play is better than anyone expected after starting 0-4 doesn’t fix that problem.
This wasn’t a “ah, shoot, we missed the NCAA tournament by one win” season. This was a “this season is probably screwed by December 1st” season. If we were sitting here after the loss to Xavier and saying “let’s cross our fingers for Sunday!” then things could continue the way that Smart has been going about his business to this point. We’re not. The way I think about it is this: If a “ah, shoot, just missed” season is worth of a pass, then this season was bad enough to count as two of those “oh, so close!” seasons wrapped up together.
To mix our sports metaphors: That’s two strikes for Smart. Third strike and you’re out.
Everything about the “the roster will evolve” messaging from the TNT Sports sideline report makes it very clear that Smart knows this, or if he doesn’t believe that his job is on the line next season, he hates what happened this season just as much as the rank and file Marquette fans and he doesn’t want to go through this ever again. Every piece of news that we get about the men’s basketball program over the next seven and a half months needs to be filtered through the lens of “Shaka Smart is working to preserve his job” because that needs to be the urgency of all of it.
To be clear, I’m not saying Shaka Smart’s next missed tournament will be the end of his time in Milwaukee. If there’s a 19-13 season in 2031 that just misses after another four straight tourney appearances, eh, that’s fine. Proof of concept received, let’s get back after it for 2032.
But next year? If whatever Shaka Smart does to fix his roster for next year fails? It will be time for Marquette to move on before things get worse.
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