Big East Basketball: Way-too-early power rankings for 2024-25 season

4. Marquette Golden Eagles

The Golden Eagles are in an interesting spot as they lose stars Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro, but the return of Kam Jones is a major move for this team. He will be expected to handle the main scoring load for this team with the season riding on his ability to make things happen for this team offensively. They lose stars but still have talent on the backend to step up, and they also have two four-star freshmen on the way. 

The Golden Eagles under Shaka Smart have been able to maximize talent well, and that is the expectation yet again this season. The big part about Marquette is they have kept their roster together despite the new landscape of the transfer portal and NIL. That speaks to Smart as a head coach and program builder when it comes to getting players to buy in on your school and program. 

Maybe they go out and make a move in the portal to bolster this team, but Marquette has been just fine building their program the traditional way. Expect them to maybe take a bit of a step back, but that seems to be the case for a lot of teams in this conference. The Golden Eagles just have the advantage of chemistry, team building, and a culture to buy into. Some new names may emerge to the rest of the nation, but this program will not be surprised when players who most have not heard of become Big East household names.