Right as the school year is about to start, Marquette men’s basketball has adjusted their roster for the 2026-27 season. On Thursday, Marquette and head coach Shaka Smart announced the signing of fifth year transfer guard Colin Porter. The 5’10”, 170 pound guard spent the last four seasons at Liberty.
Shaka Smart on his new player:
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“We’re thrilled to be adding the person and player that Colin is,” Smart said. “He’s a strong cultural fit who possesses excellent basketball IQ, poise and maturity. Colin’s shooting, ballhandling and passing will bolster our backcourt immediately.”
Colin Porter started every single game he played for Liberty for the past four seasons, and yes, that is all 135 games that the Flames played in that time period. He averaged at least 27 minutes a game in each of his four seasons, and capped off his time there with 11.1 points, 3.0 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 1.4 steals per game. Porter is a career 38% three-point shooter with his senior year mark of 35.8% going in the books as his worst output. Seeing as that was also his career high in attempts per game, I’m going to guess that if he gets a little bit more choosy, he’ll go back towards the 40% from freshman year or 43% from junior year.
His assist rate trailed off this past year after three straight seasons in the top 400 in the country according to KenPom.com. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about with Porter not even making into the top 500 in 2025-26, as Zach Cleveland was a top 25 assist rate guy for Liberty last season. That’s gonna make a dent in Porter’s ability to be the guy who makes the pass that leads to the bucket, y’know? Elsewhere in Analytics Town, Porter had a slightly questionable turnover rate as a freshman, coming in at 20.4% on KenPom, but he’s been under 18% in each of the last three seasons, including just 13.1% this past year for the Flames.
One thing that’s slightly bothersome? It’s not his shooting in general. As mentioned, his three-point shooting is fine to great. Porter is a career 49.5% shooter on two-point attempts, and he was north of 50% each of the past two seasons as well. It’s his shooting in specific circumstances. In 27 career games against what KenPom.com calls Tier A+B opponents — top 100 teams, adjusted for home/road situations — Porter is shooting 39-for-94 on two-pointers. That’s just 41.5%. Last year, 15 of Marquette’s 20 Big East games were A+B games, and they played five more in non-conference play, and the Big East tournament game against Xavier counted, too. That’s 21, and we can roughly presume that the 2026-27 schedule will land somewhere in that vicinity. 3.5 two-point attempts per game is more than Porter averaged in any of his four seasons at Liberty, so he was shooting more than average in those contests and coming up with more misses than his career or season averages.
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If Marquette’s offensive system is still going to be predicated on getting open layups — offensive guru Nevada Smith is the head coach at Siena now, after all — and that’s going to lead to Porter taking more shots near the rim, then maybe this is all okay. It all comes down to how he’s going to be used, and to be very clear: There is zero reason that Shaka Smart is taking a transfer under these circumstances if Porter isn’t going to play some kind of a role on the 2026-27 team.
The circumstances in question? Colin Porter is only technically legally eligible right now. He just finished four years at Liberty, and if this was a year ago, that would be that. However, the NCAA approved five years/five seasons rules over the summer, and Porter is part of a lawsuit in North Carolina that contests the NCAA’s rule that the seniors from 2025-26 don’t get the fifth year. I want to be 100% clear about this: I think Porter should be eligible, because I am shocked that the NCAA was stupid enough to not anticipate the mountain of lawsuits like this that they are facing and thus just grandfather the Class of 2026 in for a fifth year. However, the lawsuits on this topic are far from being completely settled. As such, there remains a chance that Colin Porter will never suit up for Marquette. Early indications from all the courts involved seem to point towards the players seeking a fifth year will end up victorious, but Billable Hours remains undefeated, so who can say for certain?
I can say for certain that we didn’t see Nash Walker at all when Marquette went on their Canadian trip as he continues to rehab from shoulder surgery in the spring. I can also say that Colton Crowdis played a total of 2:34 in the entire three game trip, and that was also the final 2:34 of a 102-65 victory. There’s a need for a point guard option behind Nigel James on this roster. Porter being available means that maybe Nolan Minessale doesn’t have to slide over to point guard duties here and there, and maybe that means that Shaka Smart is 1) making sure he has point guard options and/or 2) sending a message to everyone on the roster that playing time is precious. If he’d rather bring Porter in during August when that could mean Minessale absorbing minutes that maybe we thought would go to Damarius Owens or Michael Porter? You see the message being sent here.
There’s another slightly more interesting message here. Shaka Smart has gone from “nah, we’ll just improve the guys we have here” to “well, this has gone poorly” to “I have added two of the best transfer fits in the country” to “hey, I can make my roster better in November thanks to legal goofiness that has opened a loophole? Cool, let’s do it.” I know what I said about Smart’s future as the Marquette head coach back in mid-March, and I stand by it. The fact of the matter is that Smart has acted like he believes it ever since then. We’ll have to wait to see what the results look like, but the process, the path taken? These are the actions of a coach who is driven to not just win, but put the horrors of last season very far in the rear view mirror.
Let’s get you a brand new scholarship chart and get out of here, eh?
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