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 get things started with the first of the brand new freshmen on the roster…….

Nigel James

Freshman — #0 — Guard — 6’0” — 185 lbs — Huntington, New York

Nigel James committed to Marquette back in July of 2024, and he was the second of what would become five Class of 2025 prospects to make his pledge at the time. Here’s what Marquette wrote about him in the press release from last year’s fall signing period:

James Jr. (6-0, 180) is rated as high as 90th nationally by 247Sports.com and competes under head coach John Buck at Long Island Lutheran High School.  As a junior at LuHi, he averaged 11.9 points and 4.3 assists per game in the team’s 12 outings in the EYBL Scholastic League.  He began his career at Cushing Academy and advanced to the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council title game, falling to current MU guard Tre Norman and Worcester Academy.  James played on the EYBL circuit for Expressions Elite.

And here’s what head coach Shaka Smart said in the press release:

“Nigel brings speed, quickness, explosiveness and decision making,” Smart said.  “He’s a point guard and knowing the ball is in his hands makes you feel good, knowing he’s going to create for others.

“It never hurts to have multiple guys on the floor who are very sure with the ball in their hands and can make good decisions,” Smart added.  “Defensively, he can really be a pest.  I’d love to see him and Sean (Jones) on the court together.  It would be the smallest backcourt out there, but what I have learned over the years is that those types of guys, with that type of heart, more than make up for any lack of size.  When guys like Nigel and Sean have toughness, grit, heart and a great mind, they really have a chance.”

Now that all the pieces have fallen into place heading into the 2025-26 season, we can say that Nigel James is a consensus top 100 prospect. 247 Sports ranks James at #86 in their internal system and #88 in the Composite. On3 slots him in at #87 in the country in their Industry Ranking. ESPN is the ranking service that ends up most impressed with James, as he’s #68 over there. If you’re looking for comparisons within the recruiting class at Marquette, On3 and ESPN have James as the top prospect on the roster this fall, while 247 has him behind Adrien Stevens internally but sitting on top when you look at the Composite rankings.

Here’s what James told 247 Sports as to why he committed to play for Marquette and Shaka Smart:

“The relationship I have with the coaches there, the history they have with their players, how they treat their players, how they handle themselves as a basketball program. They are very hands-on,” James said about the Marquette staff.

“There wasn’t really a moment,” James said about his recruitment and eventual commitment to Marquette. “It just took me a little bit to process everything and take my time to sit down and evaluate who was recruiting me the most and who reached out to me the most.”

“[Shaka Smart] is a great coach, he is someone that is very respected, he holds me to a high standard,” James said. “He talks to me about how my game is going, whether it was a good or bad game. (Marquette) was a school that was always there and always reaching out to me.”

Reasonable Expectations

The word “reasonable” is the thing that we have to hold on to here, because of the fact that James has ultimately turned into the most heralded recruiting prospect in the Class of 2025 for Marquette. By default, that should sound an awful lot like he should be at the very least a notable contributor for the Golden Eagles this fall.

Except we could have said the same thing for Damarius Owens last year when he came in as a top 70 prospect in the 247 Sports Composite rankings and he averaged less than 10 minutes a game. If I was writing a Summer Vibe Check for Marquette going into this year, I probably would have skipped Owens as a Notable Returning Player. The year before, Tre Norman was a top 90 prospect in the 247 Composite, and two years later, we’re still waiting to see him pop out as a notable contributor for the Golden Eagles.

You see my point here.

But with Marquette returning just one guard who averaged over 16 minutes a game last season and just two players who cleared that number in general, we can easily say that the door is open for Nigel James to carve out a space for himself right away on this roster. That’s even more so the case given that he is listed at just six feet tall and is therefore going to be asked to be a point guard on this team one way or another. It might be as a two point guard combination backcourt as Shaka Smart alluded to in that quote up above, but that’s still going to mean he’s playing some point guard for the Golden Eagles.

How much should we reasonable expect to see him this year? Well, the BartTorvik.com computer projections for Marquette’s roster say 30% of the minutes. In a 40 minute game, that’s 12 minutes a night with 3.8 points and 1.4 assists per game. The catch is that’s expecting 26 minutes from Sean Jones and nearly 15 from Tre Norman. Are you convinced that both of those things are going to happen? Depending on what your answer is, then adjust your reasonable expectations for Nigel James accordingly.

Why You Should Get Excited

The door is open for Nigel James to be Marquette’s starting/primary point guard. Maybe it’s not open a lot, but it’s definitely ajar.

The thing I just pointed out at the end of the reasonable expectations is the reason why you should be excited about what Nigel James can do in his first season with the Golden Eagles. If he proves to be a reliable and dependable point guard option for Marquette, then the coaching staff needs to let him run the show. I don’t usually use this section to point out the problems and question marks around the rest of the roster, but the fact of the matter is that we haven’t seen Sean Jones play in a Division 1 game since January 10, 2024. That is a LONG TIME ago, and presuming he can just be The Guy for MU is a mistake. At least we’ve seen enough from Jones to say “well, if he’s healthy and if he’s improved, then sure, I can see it,” because we can’t say that we’ve seen enough from Norman to put a big expectation on him.

Which leaves us with the chance that Nigel James grabs the brass ring and takes off with it.

You wanna just watch him throw assists for 25 minutes?

Potential Pitfalls

He has to be able to defend.

Marquette has been a top 50 KenPom.com defense the past three seasons, and top 30 each of the last two. That identity is not changing as long as Shaka Smart’s in charge. It’s especially not changing now that Marquette is going into a season without a guy that you can at least imagine will be an All-American at point guard, which is what we’ve seen the last two years. At the very least, until some roles get sorted out, Marquette is going to have to lean back on their defense to win ball games, and that’s going to mean that if Nigel James wants to play real minutes at point guard, he has to defend.

And remember: He’s listed at six feet tall. Listed. That’s the second fakest height in sports, right behind the “no one is ever going to believe you’re six feet tall” listed height of 5’11”. All apologies to our Short King friends out there, but it’s easier to defend at the Division 1 level if you’re taller. There’s just more of you to take up space! It’s physics! That’s a thing that James is going to have to overcome. I’ve seen videos of him dunking the basketball at just six feet tall, so clearly he’s got athleticism to him to help bridge the gap between size and capacity to defend.

But he has to actually do it.

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