The 2026-27 college basketball season is right around the corner, so let’s dive into the Marquette men’s basketball roster and take a look at what to expect from each player this season. Going forward in these Player Previews, we’ll be going in this order: The two freshmen going in alphabetical order by last name then doing the same for the three transfers, then moving on to the redshirt freshmen. After that, it’s the seven players returning from last year’s roster going in order of average minutes
played per game last season.
We’re going to organize our thoughts about the upcoming season as it relates to each player into categories, as we always do:
- Reasonable Expectations
- Why You Should Get Excited
- Potential Pitfalls
With that out of the way, we turn our attention to the first of the three transfers joining the roster this season, and perhaps the most potentially impactful transfer…
Sananda Fru
Senior — #11 — Forward — 6’11” — 250 lbs — Berlin, Germany
Sananda Fru comes over to Marquette via the transfer portal after one year at Louisville. Yes, he’s listed as a senior here even though he was only with the Cardinals for one season because the NCAA approved him for just two years of eligibility after playing for Loewen Braunschweig for four years over in Germany. Does he have more eligibility now that the NCAA switched things to five years/five seasons? Maybe? In theory? I thiiiiiiiink he fits the profile age-wise to return next season, and Marquette labeling him a Senior and not 5th Year does kind of lean in that direction, doesn’t it??
Well, that’s a conversation for a future date, I suppose.
As for what he did in actual college basketball action, Fru appeared in all 35 games for the Cardinals in 2025-26, starting 29 times as they went 24-11 and earned a second straight NCAA tournament appearance under the direction of head coach Pat Kelsey. He started Louisville’s first 29 contests of the season, earning four KenPom.com MVP honors along the way. For whatever reason, Fru lost his starting spot to Vangelis Zougris at that point, and it’s worth mentioning that Fru played more minutes than Zougris in all but one game the rest of the way.
Fru averaged 9.0 points per game for the Cardinals, which was pretty far down their stat sheet with four double digit scorers, but he did lead the squad in rebounding at 6.1 per contest. He was also the team leader in blocks at 1.4 a night in 22.0 minutes on average and he found the free time to add 1.2 assists as well. He was much more productive as a starter for Louisville, averaging 10.0 points and 6.3 rebounds, but I really can’t explain why he was down to 6.8 and 5.7 when his minutes only went down by two per game.
On an analytical level, Fru was one of the most efficient players in the country last season, ranking #39 in Offensive Rating per KenPom.com. He was top 30 in the country in offensive rebounding rate and top 80 in block rate as well. His fouls-per-40 numbers are a little bit worrying at 4.2, but in comparison to, say, for no particular reason, Caedin Hamilton and his 5.5 fouls per 40 last year, Fru is doing just fine. Besides, wouldn’t you like to have the second best two-point shooter — .765 shooting percentage! — in the country playing for you, fouls or not?
You guys wanna watch 11 minutes of highlights that the ACC Network put together?
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Reasonable Expectations
Let’s start here: 22.0 minutes a night’s not going to be enough. Right now, Sananda Fru is the only person on this roster that I trust to play minutes at center for Marquette this season. If you’re saying “hey, wait a minute, what about…” then I say “Royce Parham is the returning starting power forward/#4, so no, I don’t trust him to play center” and then I give you a dirty look to dare you to say anything else. And so, if we can’t trust anyone else to play real minutes at the 5, then Fru has to play way more than the 22.0/game he played for the Cardinals.
And so, if we convert 22.0 minutes per game to 30.0 minutes per game: 12.3 points, 8.3 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.9 blocks.
Okay, maybe the blocks are a bit much to expect, but the pace is the pace, and the minutes just tells you how long he gets to work at that pace, right?
Anyway, this sends us over to BartTorvik.com to see what the algorithm projects for Fru. Because that’s taking his one season of eligibility as a junior and projecting it forward to what he would do as a senior — and in fairness, how many guys really blow up from junior year to senior year, anyway? — Torvik puts Fru at 26.4 minutes per game, and 9.1 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game. That’s the kind of numbers situation that’s really just bumping upwards from his minutes per game for Louisville than anything else. Worst case scenario, given his efficiency numbers, if all Fru does is produce at the same rate with more playing time, that’s probably going to be great news for Marquette.
Remember: Ben Gold averaged 8.3 points and 5.9 rebounds in 27.7 minutes per game as a starter last season. If Marquette is getting much more efficient play and thus much better production from Fru, that’s fantastic news for everyone here, I think.
Why You Should Get Excited
Sananda Fru averaged 9.3 points and 8.0 rebounds per game on the exhibition trip through Canada. That’s actual production in the lineup alongside Nigel James and Adrien Stevens and Royce Parham, the guys we expected to be the backbone of the 2026-27 Golden Eagles.
Now, you’re saying, “wait, that’s what you just said that should be about the reasonable expectation for him.” Yes, excellent point. I also didn’t tell you that Fru did that while averaging just 18 minutes per game in those three exhibition contests. Bump all of those numbers by 50% to get him to 27 minutes?
13.9 points and 12.0 rebounds. What if that’s real production level for Fru in this offense with these teammates?
And by the way? Fru was maybe kinda depends on what the video actually shows arguably bad in those three games. He had a 5-for-11 outing in one and a 3-for-9 in the other, missing two three-pointers in each one, and ultimately shooting just 52% on two-pointers across all three contests. Maybe it’s too much to ask from him to shoot over 70% again this season, but if he meets 52% and 76% somewhere in the middle, that’s tremendous and thus jumps those numbers up even further.
That’s the math of it. Did you guys watch that highlight reel from the ACC Network? 11 straight minutes of Sananda Fru instinctively finding open spaces for drivers to drop passes off to him and going up for easy dunks, or setting a screen and rolling to the rim for a pass, either on the bounce or off the lob. Defending guys one on one in space and coming up with deflections. Running the floor and being ready to score when his guards threw him the ball. Even one runout of his own when he tipped a long inbounds pass and collected it and scored. Athletic, mobile, aware of his surroundings, great hands if the passes weren’t quite on the money. Sure, it’s curated highlights and none of the miscues are in there.
But what do you think Sananda Fru is capable of doing when you pair him with a point guard like Nigel James that’s going to be a contender for Big East Player of the Year and All-American recognition this season? All due respect to Ryan Conwell and Mikel Brown here, the names you heard often throwing the passes for Louisville in those clips, but they weren’t having the kind of season that Nigel James is poised to have. And if we’re being honest? If playing with James raises the floor on what Fru is capable of doing on the court, that’s actually going to make it easier for James to take a run at POY and All-American status.
Potential Pitfalls
Can we talk about Sananda Fru’s on/off stats from last year?
If we point our attention towards Hoop Explorer and fine tune the numbers down to only top 150 opponents, and throw out garbage time as well, we get a good look as to Fru’s effectiveness on both sides of the ball against roughly the same level of opponent that we’re going to see Marquette play 26 regular season games against this season. Even with his high Offensive Rating, even with his high two-point shooting percentage, even with his great offensive rebounding rate, even with his terrific shot blocking rate… Sananda Fru really didn’t have much of an impact on what Louisville was doing.
UL’s offense while Fru was on the floor: 124.9 points per 100 possessions
Off the floor: 125.6 per 100 possessions
UL’s defense while Fru was on the floor: 99.6 points per 100 possessions
Off the floor: 100.7 per 100 possessions
Not precisely the same, but really close. It’s good news that the defense was more than full point per 100 possessions better, but at the end of the day, that’s not an impactful difference when Louisville’s games were on the line.
Something Mick Cronin said years ago when he was the head coach at Cincinnati has stuck with me. Late in the year, Marquette played the Bearcats, and after MU lost 72-61 to UC to drop to 13-4 in Big East play, Mick Cronin wouldn’t stop praising Jae Crowder. Cronin watched Crowder put up 17/12/2/1/1 in a loss on a bad shooting night and declared after the game that he either already had or was going to vote for Crowder for Big East Player of the Year because, and I apologize if I don’t get the line exactly right, “he impacts winning on both ends of the floor more than anyone else in our league.” Crowder of course did win Big East POY that season, much to the consternation of West Virginia fans because they had the guy who led the league in points and rebounds that season, which is kind of helpful to the point I’m making here.
The point is this: What if while Sananda Fru is efficient and effective and puts up nice numbers, he’s just not impacting winning on both ends of the floor for Marquette? Based on the on/off data, we can make the argument that his efficiency and rebounding and shot blocking didn’t actually impact winning all that much for Louisville lsat year. Is that a Fru thing or how Pat Kelsey used him in their system? If it’s a Pat Kelsey thing, maybe that’s why Fru is at Marquette now, and my concerns are unfounded.
But if it’s a Fru thing, and it’s very clear that Marquette’s pathway to a successful 2026-27 season runs through Sananda Fru being a major part of why MU wins… what if he’s just not that guy?
