This is from the Little Rock game. Josh Clark played 14 minutes in this game. | Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty ImagesWith the 2025-26 season long since in the books, let’s take a few moments to look back at the performance of each member of YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles this year.
While we’re at it, we’ll also take a look back at our player previews and see how our preseason prognostications stack up with how things actually played out. We’ll run through the roster in order of total minutes played going from lowest to highest, and today we’ll start off our run of reviews with the tallest guy on the roster this past season……. Redshirt Freshman — #8 — Forward — 7’1” — 225 lbs.
— Virginia Beach, VirginiaGamesMinFGMFGAFG%3PTM3PA3P%FTMFTAFT%ORebDRebRebAstStlBlkFoulsPts235. 50. 61.
346. 7%0000. 10.
623. 1%0. 71.
31. 900. 20.
30. 51. 3ORtg%Poss%ShotseFG%TS%OR%DR%ARateTORateBlk%Stl%FC/40FD/40FTRate100.
914. 7%15. 7%46.
7%42. 9%12. 8%26.
1%0%3. 0%7. 0%1.
8%3. 53. 343.
3%WHAT WE SAID:Reasonable ExpectationsSix minutes a game, 1. 5 points, 1. 2 rebounds.
Yes, that is hyper-specific, thank you for asking. Why? Because those numbers are exactly what Caedin Hamilton did last year for Marquette.
There’s not much different between Hamilton and Clark, with both men as “project big men coming off a redshirt season to help them get ready to contribute. ” Sure, Clark has four inches on Hamilton, which does naturally help him out in terms of immediate impact, but expecting more than the last guy who was a project big for Shaka Smart probably isn’t the best idea we’ve ever had, y’know? To continue the point: The BartTorvik.
com algorithm doesn’t have Clark listed as one of the top 10 contributors on this year’s team. We’ll get into why I don’t 100% buy that in a second, but we’re talking about reasonable expectations here. After what we saw from Hamilton last year — and Keeyan Itejere back in 2022-23, if we’re being honest — I don’t think that we can expect a whole bunch from Clark this year.
The year in Milwaukee is going to be beneficial for him, but probably not “starting big man” beneficial. Why You Should Get ExcitedSomeone has to start at center for Marquette. I landed on “He was fine at worst” relative to Ben Gold’s adventures as Marquette’s starting center last season.
That doesn’t stop me from thinking that he may be deployed best as the primary/starting 4-man in the starting lineup and occasionally landing as the big man on the floor depending on fouls and lineup rotations. If that’s the case, then Marquette’s attention for a starting center turns to either Caedin Hamilton or Joshua Clark. This is the part where I don’t agree with BartTorvik.
com leaving both of them out of the top 10 contributors. If Shaka Smart and his staff move Gold over to the 4 and tell Hamilton and Clark that “hey, you guys gotta figure out how to cover at least 30 of these minutes, have at it,” then at least one of them is pretty much automatically a top 10 contributor. And why not Clark?
He’s the taller one which helps on both offense and defense, he’s the one that lit up the McGuire Center with quickie dunks in last year’s open practice. I’m not talking about a massive overshooting of expectations here. Starting, playing 15 minutes, averaging five points and four rebounds, being a net positive defender?
If Marquette can get that from Clark, I think that changes the trajectory of the season and bodes well for his development over the next several seasons, too. Potential PitfallsCaedin Hamilton redshirted for a year and played 184 minutes last year, and just 91 after the start of Big East play. Keeyan Itejere redshirted for a year and played just 29 minutes and just nine minutes after Big East play started.
There is a version of 2025-26 Marquette basketball where Shaka Smart and his staff see the best way forward with Ben Gold at center. If that’s what’s happening, then the big Kiwi is probably playing 25-30 minutes a night and the chances for playing time for Joshua Clark are disappearing into thin air after that. The question might be whether or not Smart & Co.
decide this before the season starts. What if they think that Clark and Hamilton can hold it down in the post, and then we get to the end of the Dayton game six contests into the year and that’s very much not the case? What if Clark’s 10 extra pounds over the last year just aren’t enough — I saw him in a sleeveless shirt at the Marquette/Wisconsin volleyball game and he doesn’t look that much bigger — to help him stand up to the physicality that he’s going to see in the Big East, and it becomes very clear over the first month of the season?
He’s supposed to be a long term development project, so if that does happen, it’s not a problem for Smart’s roster building…. it just might be a problem for the 2025-26 Golden Eagles. 5.
5 minutes per game, 1. 3 points per game, 1. 9 rebounds per game.
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