On Wednesday night, Marquette men’s basketball dropped to 3-3 on the season and 3-3 against KenPom.com top 160 opponents with a 77-71 loss to Dayton in overtime. It was the sixth straight start of the season for
redshirt sophomore big man Caedin Hamilton. Since he has played at least 15 minutes in every game, Hamilton has now played more minutes in every game so far this season than he played in any game last season. With 108 total minutes played this year, he has already reached 58% of the total minutes he played last year in 29 appearances as a redshirt freshman.
And it is not working.
Game 1: Effectively invisible in 16 minutes as Marquette beat Albany by 27, did not record a field goal attempt, grabbed one rebound, blocked one shot, finished with a KenPom.com offensive rating of 58 where 100 is average/fine/I’m not worrying about you.
Game 2: 21 minutes in an 18 point win over Southern, 12 points on 5-for-6 shooting, only two rebounds, offensive rating of 177.
Game 3: 21 minutes in a blowout loss to Indiana, 10 points and five rebounds, but four turnovers and three fouls, offensive rating of 95.
Game 4: 19 minutes in a 40 point win over Little Rock, 1-for-5 from the field for two points, five rebounds, but four fouls, offensive rating of 110.
Game 5: A season low 15 minutes in a seven point loss to Maryland, no field goal attempts, five rebounds, three fouls, offensive rating of 100, somehow.
Game 6: 17 minutes in an overtime loss to Dayton on his way to an offensive rating of 76, six points on 2-for-4 shooting, six rebounds and two steals, but three fouls — two in the first four minutes, an awful charge where he plowed down a stationary secondary defender and an awful and pointless hack on a late recovery under the rim — and three turnovers, including this atrocious travel while being defended by the 6’5”, 212 pound Jordan Derkack in the post while Marquette was down 10:
Shouts to Andrei over at Paint Touches for the video assist.
As you can see, that came when the clock wound under 13 minutes left to go, and Marquette head coach Shaka Smart subbed Hamilton out with 8:29 to go and Marquette down nine. Hamilton didn’t return to the game — as Marquette rallied to tie the game! — until overtime when Ben Gold couldn’t get out onto the floor while getting checked out after a mild leg something-or-other that happened while the Golden Eagles forgot to get a shot off on the final possession of regulation. Hamilton played the first three minutes, got whistled for a moving screen, got pulled for the as-it-turns-out okay Gold, and did not return as Dayton closed the game out.
Caedin Hamilton has an offensive rating of 101.5 on the season, but that drops to 95 against Marquette’s lone KenPom top 50 opponent (that’s just the Indiana game) and 90.8 in the three contests against KP top 100 opponents, all losses. He has a turnover rate of 27.2%, which is the worst of Marquette’s five starters in the last three games by a wide margin — everyone else is under 18%, which is absolutely fine/great — and the worst of any of the six men who have started for the Golden Eagles this season.
Hoop Explorer has Marquette scoring 108.6 points per 100 possessions in raw numbers while Hamilton is on the floor this season, and they give up 103.7 on the other end. While he’s on the bench? 112.7 for, 95.9 against.
Adjusted for opponent? 107.6 for and 100.0 against while he’s on the floor, 111.6 and 91.8 while he’s not.
This. Is. Not. Working.
I don’t know what head coach Shaka Smart and his staff saw in summer workouts and preseason practices, because they clearly saw something that they really liked. Partially because of their praise of him in the off-season, I was personally an optimist on Hamilton in 2025-26, wondering out loud that if Hamilton and redshirt freshman Josh Clark could find a way to be productive at center for a combined 30 minutes a game, that could create a situation where Marquette can mix and match their bigs with Ben Gold and Royce Parham in the mix and create advantageous situations. Hamilton is not passing the eye test or the stat test on whether he’s pulling his head of the rope on that situation, and roll this one around in your head for a while: Josh Clark didn’t play at all against Dayton after not getting more than nine minutes against anyone this season except for Little Rock.
It’s clear to me — and should be to pretty much everyone at this point — that several somethings about how Marquette men’s basketball is going about their business need to change going forward from Wednesday night’s loss. He might be a very good teammate and a very nice young man to interact with, but all signs point to one of the necessary changes being altering Caedin Hamilton’s role in the rotation.
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