Shaka blending havoc, humility and hubris with first Marquette team

Already rebuilding Marquette to fit his effervescent personality, Shaka Smart now sets to work on making Golden Eagles into connected and aggressive team befitting of his past rosters. (Photo by the Marquette Wire)

NEW YORK — In his first public media session since being introduced as head coach at Marquette nearly seven months ago, Shaka Smart was not one to mince words when discussing what would comprise his maiden roster of Golden Eagles as it prepares to take flight in the Big East Conference.

Still the same dynamic and contagious personality that endeared him to the nation in his dozen seasons at VCU and Texas, Smart was effusive in his praise for the players he inherited from Steve Wojciechowski and brought in on his own, but also doubled down on the experienced veterans providing a much-needed jolt of leadership, a tenet that is as vital to his coaching as it is to the pulse with which he wakes up and dictates the tempo of every day.

“It’s going to be everything,” Smart said of the presence of graduate transfers Darryl Morsell and Kur Kuath, arriving in Milwaukee by way of Maryland and Oklahoma, respectively. “I think every team is determined by its leadership, and we define leadership as the ability to just make people better. Having Darryl and Kur is important for us because even though they’ll only be on our team for one year, they’re going to mean everything to our foundation, and they’re doing a great job so far.”

And to those who do not yet know how central leadership is to Marquette's new coach, it goes far beyond the playing surface at Fiserv Forum, whose professional residents — reigning NBA champions, for the record — are role models in Smart’s eyes for how his young charges should approach the dichotomy of basketball and life, but that does not mean the finished product on the hardwood will be neglected. In fact, it will be a cultivated effort, taking positive energy and marrying it with the Havoc defense — predicated on transition opportunities, 3-point shots and maximum aggression — that made Smart a household name in coaching circles across the nation.

“It’s not so much about the court you play on,” he opined. “I think it’s more about having a respect for what goes into winning and what goes into (a) positive experience on the court. The Bucks are as good an example as anyone of that, the way Giannis, Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton carry themselves, represent themselves, the way they work. That’s certainly an example we want to follow.”

“There’s different benchmarks. How long it takes to fully transition, that could be a while, but I think what you’re looking for is, number one, can you build a consistency of playing with enthusiasm, defending with enthusiasm, playing with an aggressiveness, even a violence about you on the defensive end? And our guys have made a lot of progress in that. Now we haven’t played any games, so we really have yet to get in-game feedback of where we are, but actually, we’re probably a little bit ahead offensively of where I thought we would be. Defensively, it’s not that we’re behind, but we still have a long way to go.”

Incumbent players the likes of Greg Elliott and Justin Lewis, who now become some of the more experienced Golden Eagles by default, will no doubt see their opportunities to be impactful on both ends of the floor, as will Tyler Kolek, last year’s Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year. The George Mason transfer, lauded by Smart for his ball handling abilities that supplement his already lethal shooting prowess, may be flying under the radar to start the season, but his new coach believes that sleeper status will not last long.

“Well, I’ll tell you this about Tyler Kolek,” Smart cautioned. “There’s a bunch of players being talked about today, and he’s not one of them? By the end of the year, he will be. We can say that and talk about it, it doesn’t really matter, but I’m just telling you I like the position he’s in because a lot of people are sleeping on him. He’s someone that I want on my team. He’s a gamer, he’s tough, he’s no-nonsense, he’s been by far the best passer on our team.”

Marquette is projected as a middle-of-the-pack Big East team in light of its rebuild, but the ground covered in seven months has provided enough of a positive to suggest that this iteration of basketball on the shores of Lake Michigan can not only surprise people at first blush, but also thrive on its commitment to one another, which remains a work in progress.

“I think our biggest strength, when we embrace it, is the unselfishness and the relationships of the players,” Smart observed. “We have guys like Kur and Darryl and Tyler, and some of the other guys on our team, that are truly about winning and are not caught up in the stuff on here or some of the other BS that can be out there in college basketball, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a given. You don’t necessarily wake up or roll out of bed that way, you have to actively get yourself in that place to be, as we say, lost in the fight or lost in your team.”

“Our biggest weakness or area for growth right now is that we have to continue to learn more about each other so we can trust each other more, just by virtue of not having been together as long. I think we have another step to take in terms of true trust on the court and really just laying it on the line for your brother. These guys are willing to do that, they’re able to do that, so now it’s a matter of us understanding it’s the only way to truly be our best.”