The 2025-26 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 four true freshmen expected to play this season going in alphabetical order by last name — skipping past Sheek Pearson who is projected to redshirt — then moving on to the redshirt freshman, then the redshirt junior who missed last year, and then going through
the returning players in ascending order of total minutes played in 2024-25.
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 move along in alphabetical order to the second of the brand new freshmen on the roster this fall……
Ian Miletic
Freshman — #21 — Forward — 6’7” — 200 lbs. — Arlington Heights, Illinois
We have to start with the obvious thing. It’s MILL-uh-titch according to Ian Miletic’s own pronunciation on his official GoMarquette.com bio page.
Ian Miletic was the first of the now five prospects in the Class of 2025 to commit to Marquette when he made his pledge back in June of 2024. Here’s what Marquette said about Miletic in the signing day press release:
Miletic (6-7, 180) is in his fourth season of varsity action at Rolling Meadows High School in suburban Chicago under head coach Kevin Katovich. Miletic (Mill-eh-tich) averaged 19.0 points, 9.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game as a junior and was named the program’s most valuable player. He was an all-conference and all-area honoree in 2023-24 and also claimed all-state accolades. In his three-year tenure on varsity, the Mustangs are 29-1 in their division. He competed on the UAA circuit with the Illinois Wolves.
And here’s head coach Shaka Smart’s comments on Miletic:
“Neill Berry did a great job early on evaluating Ian and it was really clear he was our type of guy,” Smart said. “He really, really cares about relationships and he’s one of the best leaders at that age that I’ve seen with his high school group.
“He’s really growing, on a great trajectory and serious about his growth,” Smart added. “He puts a lot of time and energy into his growth and he cares deeply about winning, so the fact that he’s aligned with those core values means a lot.”
Miletic may be a development-type prospect for Marquette right now, at least in terms of how the recruiting sites view him. 247 Sports ranks him at #111 in the country internally and #201 in their Composite system. On3 slots him in at #176 in their Industry Ranking, while ESPN doesn’t have him in the top 100 but agrees with On3 that he’s a three-star prospect.
Would you like to take a tour through Miletic’s final season of high school hoops? May I point you towards IanMiletic.com, which appears to be a newsletter powered by Ghost that I presume is run by his parents. Reading through the updates there — which go back to December 2023, by the way — is going to do a much better job of advising you as to what’s important to know about him than anything I’m going to be able to do.
Reasonable Expectations
Let’s just say it out loud: BartTorvik.com’s algorithmic projections don’t have Ian Miletic as one of Marquette’s top 10 contributors this season. By default, I disagree with that projection, not because of a high view of what Miletic has to offer to the team, but because it doesn’t have Caedin Hamilton or Josh Clark in the top 10. We’ll get to those guys in the Player Preview cycle eventually, but I’m pretty confident that one or the other will be a rotation piece at the very least, and if they’re not top 10, that’s not right.
Still, we’re talking about a situation where Miletic is a prospect coming in ranked outside the top 100 in the country, and he’s joining a wing group that has Zaide Lowery and Damarius Owens in front of him in terms of a projected rotation. Depending on how Shaka Smart sees his players, that might even include Chase Ross and/or Royce Parham in the bunch. That’s a hard cap on ways that Miletic gets on the floor, as I’m not 100% sure that he’s capable of beating any of those guys out in a position battle this season. That’s fine, like I said, he may be more of a developmental prospect for the Golden Eagles this season. Whatever he can provide to the squad in a positive manner this year is helpful for Shaka Smart’s time as head coach in the long term.
Why You Should Get Excited
I’m pulling this sentence from this scouting report by Adam Bartoshevich on Substack:
Miletic’s recruiting picked up after he poured in 20 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists per game on 45% 3P shooting junior year.
Forty. Five. Percent.
To drive the point home: One player in Marquette history — Steve Novak — shot 45% or better for their career in blue and gold. Yes, everyone in the top 10 for single seasons is north of there, but not out of the gate at Marquette. Only four freshmen — Markus Howard, Steve Novak, Jamal Cain, and Sam Hauser — have cleared 45% on threes. Three of those guys are three of the if not the best three-point shooters in program history, and Cain got there on just 55 attempts.
If that is at all replicable right away at the Division 1 collegiate level…. and Miletic can defend enough to make his shooting at the very least a net positive in terms of value…. well, stick him in the game and let him launch.
Potential Pitfalls
If Miletic can shoot even over 35% and defend enough, he can earn minutes on this team. There’s too many questions everywhere else with this team to ignore a guy who can contribute shooting and perimeter defense.
If he can’t do both of those things? Might be a very long season of watching Miletic hanging out on the Marquette bench for most of the time. There’s one too many guys in front of him in terms of playing his position on the floor to let a guy learn on the fly if he’s not producing in a positive manner.
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