It’s Just One Game, BUT……

And now, with the first Marquette men's basketball game of the season in the books, let's overreact to what we saw in the 40 minutes of action at Fiserv Forum against Mercyhurst.

Something has to be done about the three-point shooting.

I don't have the patience to go back through chart every single long range attempt that Marquette fired off on Monday night to tell you whether or not MU shot nothing but open catch-and-shoot jumpers and we all just have to live with the results. What I can tell you is that 4-for-21 from behind the three-point line is 19.0% and that is not going to cut it against a team that looks like they can tie their own shoes on the first try.

Now, sure, some caveats. Odds are we're going to see Marquette's starting five play a lot more minutes on a nightly basis. Sananda Fru led the crew here with just 23 minutes, and Damarius Owens didn't even clear 17. Those five — four, really, because Fru didn't attempt a triple — shot 3-for-10 behind the arc. If we shuttle some of the 1-for-11 shooting from everyone else over to Nigel James, Adrien Stevens, and Royce Parham, odds are it won't be 1-for-11 much longer. Yes, Stevens missed all three of his attempts. He'll be fine eventually.

Who might not be fine is Michael Phillips, who went 1-for-5 and HOO BOY, some of his misses were UGLY. Alex Egbuonu went 0-for-3 after looking pretty solid on his stroke against Michigan State. That's 1-for-8 just on those two guys, so that's seven of MU's 17 misses right there. This will all likely balance out…. but this 19% stuff can't happen again.

I've been sitting back here watching Clark against Green Bay and Michigan State insisting that the best we can do is mark him as totally acceptable to give Sananda Fru a breather. He's been looking fine, there's no reason to heap expectation on him when as recently as March he was unable to play in consecutive games much less do anything productive in them.

I might have to abandon my hold call on Josh Clark's expectations.

TO BE CLEAR ABOUT THIS: Mercyhurst rosters one guy taller than 6'8" and that one guy 1) is 6'9" and thus four inches shorter than Clark and 2) played a total of 10 minutes on Monday night. Please take that into account when I say the following:

Josh Clark played 16 minutes off the bench and tallied up a TEAM HIGH 18 points on 8-for-9 shooting, grabbed seven rebounds, dished an assist, and swatted three shots, including an incredibly dominant, waited til the shot was out of the guy's hand, leapt, and pitched that thing into the third row block in the second half. He never played 16 minutes in a game last year, coming closest with 14 in an 89-49 win over Little Rock. He never touched double digits in scoring, getting to six twice, once versus Little Rock and once in 13 minutes against UConn on the road.

It's just one game, but his rebounding rates for this one game are really not that far off what he was doing in limited minutes last season.

Sananda Fru can do more as a basketball player than Clark can at this point, and at the end of the day, I think that head coach Shaka Smart is going to lean in that direction. And maybe this is more Mercyhurst has a roster of guys giving up 5 inches to Clark than anything else.

But if this is remotely close to real…. watch out.

23 minutes, 12 points on 4-for-6 shooting, team high 12 rebounds, including seven on the offensive end, one assist, tied with Clark for team high in blocks with three, one steal. If Shaka Smart had let him run wild for a playing time closer to 30 minutes like we can probably expect to see from Fru more often than not, that's a 25% bump to his PT and thus his stats. 15 & 15, maybe another assist and a steal, another block? Again, as I mentioned with Clark's unreal night, maybe this is all just a by-product of Mercyhurst not having guys who can literally measure up next to Fru in height.

But this Sananda Fru looked better than what his stats at Louisville indicated. Clearly there was some kind of disconnect between what's best for Fru as a player and what UL head coach Pat Kelsey wants his big man to do, and that's why Fru isn't a Cardinal any more. I'm willing to believe he can do more and be more than his 2025-26 stat profile says he can be…. so where exactly is the limit on that?

The possessions where Marquette gets stuck in neutral on offense have to stop.

I can only remember one on Monday night. All of a sudden, the shot clock drifts under 10, and MU was nowhere close to finding a useful shot. Clock continues to wind, Nigel James gets it late in the clock, and has to half-ass force something together to get a shot off in time.

I only remember the one, which, y'know, sometimes when you're up big — the one I remember was in the second half in front of MU's bench — you get a little too patient, a little too lax, not quite as quick and decisive as you need to be, and now there's six seconds left on the shot clock and you pitch it to the preseason all-Big East First Teamer to make something happen. Okay. It happens. I'm willing to say ah, well, 64 possessions, one wasn't fun.

But I saw a lot of those "uh, now what?" type of possessions against Green Bay and Michigan State. Those types of possessions were part of the reason why MU was only up five at the half on the Phoenix and part of the reason why Michigan State sliced a double digit margin down to just five points in the exhibition games. Marquette is supposed to beat Green Bay, and Marquette should beat teams that play as poorly as Michigan State played, even if both games were exhibitions. Mission accomplished, even with the problems that developed again and again.

Eventually this season, Marquette is going to face a good team throwing their A game at the Golden Eagles. That might be coming up next Wednesday in Ann Arbor against Michigan. If we get too many of those stuck in neutral possessions, things can turn against Marquette in a hurry. As a team that has a Lost In The Fight mantra and a Play With Violence mantra, even one of these types of offensive possessions feels like too many in one game.

The writing is on the wall for Ian Miletic, and probably for Nash Walker.

Freshman Ethan Johnston subbed into the game at the 9:17 mark of the first half with Marquette up 20-8. He was the last sub into the game that I was completely expecting to see in the opener. MU was up 20 for the first time with 3:37 left before the break, they were up 22 at intermission, they were up 30 with 16:49 left in the second half, and they were up 40 for the first time with 8:04 left to go.

Ian Miletic checked in at the 4:28 mark of the second half with the score sitting at 71-29, Marquette by 42. Nash Walker came in at the under-4 media timeout, 3:51 to go, same score as when Miletic checked in 40-ish seconds earlier.

Marquette lost the time that those two played by a score of 14-7. 10-6 before Braeden Brenn and Colton Crowdis checked in for the Human Victory Cigar Formation with 49 seconds left.

If there was an inkling of an idea inside Shaka Smart's head that he was curious to find out if he could get anything at all out of Miletic or Walker this season, they would have played at nearly literally any other point in the game. For sure after Johnston checked in. Definitely in the second half long before there was just four minutes remaining. "Hey, we're up 30, who cares, let's give Ian five minutes here."

Marquette had their worst stretch of the game with them on the floor against an opponent that was wildly in over their head from Minute #1.

What's the over/under on Marquette home games with Milwaukee Brewers in attendance for the rest of the season?

In case you missed it, left fielder Jackson Chourio, second baseman (and now National League MVP finalist!) Brice Turang, and bullpen catcher Christian Correa from YOUR 2026 World Series Champion Milwaukee Brewers pulled up on Monday night. They got to sit courtside near the MU bench in the seats where you can commonly find Marquette President Kimo Ah Yun and assorted special guests.

As the Scrambled Eggs podcast noted in their season preview episode that published on Monday morning, it would be neat to see the champs stop in for a vist at some point this season. And so, we checked that box off in Game #1.

That's just two of the players on the active roster, though. There's still another 17 home games to go, although the last three are after spring training starts. Figure it's likely that Marquette won't bring anyone to the McGuire Center on Friday, and none of the Brewers will make it to any of the home games in the second half of February.

That's 13 other home games. Calculate in the fact that these guys have winter training situations and Christmas and so on, let's set it at +/- 4.5 games with at least one Brewers player or manager Pat Murphy in attendance. Which side of that do you want to take?

That's my overreactions for Game #1 of the 2026-27 Marquette men's basketball season. What are yours? Fire away in the comments, let's see whatcha got.

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