The 2026-27 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 two freshmen going in alphabetical order by last name then doing the same for the three transfers, then moving on to the redshirt freshmen. After that, it’s the seven players returning from last year’s roster going in order of average minutes played per game last season.
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 tackle the issue of a transfer who is still in limbo as to his status for this season…..
Colin Porter comes to Marquette after graduating from Liberty University. He started in every single one of the 135 games he played for the Flames, averaging 9.0 points, 2.7 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and 1.3 steals for his career. As a senior, he went for 11.1 points, 3.0 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 1.4 steals per game. He’s a competent three-point shooter, launching at least 3.4 per game in each of his four seasons with Liberty and wrapping up with a career shooting percentage of 38.4%.
Porter has always been an efficient player and he’s been getting better as his career went along. He had a KenPom.com offensive rating of 104.7 as a freshman and went for 113.6 as a senior. Thanks to nearly 43% three-point shooting as a junior, he was top 70 in the country in effective field goal percentage. He’s not much a worry when it comes to turnovers, especially as he’s gained experience, and if he’s deployed as a pure point guard, his assist rate flies up the charts, clearing 20% in three of his four seasons with the Flames.
About the only real concern to his game, especially when it comes to playingin the Big East, is his shooting inside the three-point line against top opposition. In 27 career games against what KenPom.com calls top 100 opponents, Porter is 39-for-94, or just 41.5%. Even that number isn’t quite accurate, as Porter went 20-for-33 (60.6%) in nine games as a junior. That leaves him at 19-for-61 in 18 games from his other three seasons, or just 31.1%. He’s a career 49.5% two-point shooter, including over 53% each of the past two campaigns, so the struggles against the best opponents is slightly worrying, especially since he played on three Liberty teams that won at least 26 games and another that was totally fine at 18-14.
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Everything I have said here so far tells you that Colin Porter can be a tremendous back up point guard to Nigel James. The issue is that according to the NCAA, Porter is not eligible to play. Over the summer, the NCAA approved a new eligibility model that allows athletes to continue to compete for five seasons across five school years.
If you noticed that I said that Porter was at Liberty for four years — and graduated, by the way! — then you’re probably wondering what the problem is with him spending his fifth season at Marquette. See, the NCAA did the stupidest thing possible: Announced the new eligibility rules in late June (after graduations and so on!) and specifically said that none of the new rules apply to everyone who just finished their four years of competition. Even worse, the new rules do apply to everyone who is still enrolled and eligible to compete. To use 2025-26 Marquette men’s basketball as an example: Nigel James will get to spend four more years with the Golden Eagles after his freshman season last year, but Chase Ross can not return for a bonus year.
To the surprise of no one except the brain trust at the NCAA, they have been IMMEDIATELY sued over this restraint of trade. 20 years ago, this probably would have just slid past without difficulty, but because there are revenue sharing dollars involved in playing college basketball, maliciously denying the recent graduates the ability to return for the paychecks from a fifth season while allowing all of their teammates to proceed to stick around for their future fifth years is a violation of their rights.
This was a stupid mistake by the NCAA that invited them the opportunity to get kicked around in court when they could have just as easily grandfathered the graduating class of 2026 into the rules. No matter when they started this, it was going to raise an issue of what to do with the seniors. The NCAA chose the worst possible way to go about this, and now they’re in court over it.
And so, officially, as I write this on October 8th, Colin Porter’s not eligible by NCAA rule. That might change! You’re not reading this until October 12th at the earliest based on the preview schedule, and Marquette doesn’t play a game that counts until November 2nd! Who knows what’s going to happen?
That’s why all of this is in the Reasonable Expectations section. The reasonable expectation for Porter is this: Either he plays and he’s helpful to the Golden Eagles or he doesn’t play and that’s that.
I actually have two things here.
The first is about Porter as a contributor in the 2026-27 season. If you look at the Marquette roster, there’s not really anyone there that jumps off the page as “obvious backup point guard to let Nigel James sit on the bench and enjoy a Gatorade.” We can talk about Nolan Minessale’s ability to distribute, but that might not be his biggest strength as a player. Adrien Stevens can probably do a little bit of it, but again: Not his best deployment. Ethan Johnston might have a little bit in him, but as a freshman, we can’t safely presume that he’ll work in that role out of the gate for the Golden Eagles.
Colin Porter fits that spot. At 5’10”, he probably can’t play with James all that much, as the pairing of two sub-6-foot guards, even if they are positive defenders, threatens to give up just a little too much size. But 5 to 10 minutes a game to spell James, where every minute Porter plays is a minute that James doesn’t have to play and thus keep his legs 1% fresher for the stretch run in late February and March? Hell yeah, great plan, love it, if for no other reason than it’s going to make Nigel James a more effective threat all season long.
The other thing is what it tells us about head coach Shaka Smart’s approach to roster building. One of two things happened here. Either A) Smart was twitchy about his roster needing a veteran back up point guard all offseason long and the NCAA handed him a possible answer so he took it after finding someone who fit, or B) Smart got twitchy about his roster after seeing them in action in Canada for three games and pulled the trigger on grabbing onto a possible answer after the trip. Remember: Colin Porter wasn’t announced as joining the program until late August, and Marquette’s last game in Canada was on August 1st.
Either way, even if Porter doesn’t play for Marquette, we have evidence that Shaka Smart has left his reliance and dependence on expecting his players to grow into the roles he needs from them in the past. That doesn’t mean that MU won’t be leading the country in returning minutes as long as Smart remains the head coach, retention and development is clearly going to remain a cornerstone for him. It does mean that he has accepted the reality that he not just can but needs to take advantage of every avenue available to him to put the best possible roster on the floor every single season.
The worst case scenario for Colin Porter’s time in Milwaukee is that a court never sides with him against the NCAA and he never plays as a result.
The second worst case scenario for Porter in 2026-27 is that he does get cleared to play and he’s not effective enough to play even five or 10 minutes a game. Whatever that reason is, it just doesn’t work, and Shaka Smart has to just bury him on the bench.
In either case, that’s just the Marquette roster that we were expecting when the month of August started. If you thought that MU could be successful enough to make the NCAA tournament in 2027 on August 1st, then it doesn’t matter if Colin Porter ever steps on the court for the Golden Eagles. The BartTorvik.com RosterCast function stands behind that idea, as Porter’s existence on the roster only moves Marquette from to in the preseason projections.
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