It Would Seem That Marquette’s Core Is Set To Return

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Feels like three spots in the Marquette starting lineup are set to go for 2026-27. | Credit: Marquette University

Jack Albright from the Marquette Wire was at Madison Square Garden for the Big East tournament, and that meant he got a chance to talk to freshman guard Adrien Stevens after Marquette men’s basketball lost to Xavier in the first round to end the Golden Eagles’ season. It’s reasonable to wonder what the future holds for the MU roster in the era of the transfer portal and Marquette’s rough 12 win season and head coach Shaka Smart announcing to the world back in mid-February that he would be evolving his roster for next season.

But, it would seem that according to Stevens, we don’t have to worry about the core trio of potentially returning players that evolved as the season went along.

Nigel, Adrien and Royce understand they are the cornerstones of #mubb's rebuild.

"We want to help the program win," Adrien said, "and us three, doing that together, is the best way for that to happen.

"So, we're going to be together."

— Jack Albright (@JackAlbrightMU) March 12, 2026

Stevens continued talking about himself, fellow freshman guard Nigel James, and sophomore forward Royce Parham from there, as elaborated in the Wire article on the future of the program written by Matthew Baltz:

“Why would we stop going after what we came here to do? It doesn’t matter what happened before, it doesn’t matter what’s going to happen in the future, we’re just going after it every day, just get better.

“We’re trying to win for the name on front of the jersey, just keep going.”

And then there’s these quotes from Nigel James in the wake of being named Big East Freshman of the Year, as gathered up by Ben Steele from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

“I never had a thought of going anywhere else,” James said. “I wanted to finish my career at Marquette.

“I’ve had a great time here in my first year. It’s just something that the coaches, like I said, they never switched up on me. They always talked to me. There was other times when I was being recruited that other coaches, maybe I wasn’t playing as good, and maybe they were moving on to the next guy. [MU] never thought that.

“That just stands for who they are. I value relationships. That was never a question for me, in my book. Never in my head. Because those people always believed in me and some people didn’t believe in me at that time. People want to believe in me now because I have a lot of accomplishments, so why go with them now. I stay down with the people that stayed down with me when I was at my lowest and my highest, too.”

…

“I just made it known because the media likes to say a lot of things,” James said. “People like to say a lot of different things.

“I seen people make edits of me in different jerseys and things like that. That was never in the picture for me. This is home for me. My brothers made it feel like home where every last person on the team I have a relationship with. I love Marquette. I love Milwaukee.”

That’s about as clear as you can get here in 2026 that Nigel James, Adrien Stevens, and Royce Parham will return for Marquette in 2026-27. I don’t have much to add in terms of editorial opinion here because the face value idea of “actually, returning all three possible starters once your seniors depart is good” pretty much explains itself.

I will, however camp out on Conspiracy Corner and note that Stevens’ quotes don’t attach themselves to anyone else on the roster. That might just be a by-product of James, Stevens, and Parham being starters and everyone else being bench guys and thus that trio is the primary focus. But a stray voice in the back of my head says that if someone wanted to attach, say, Damarius Owens to this conversation, they very easily could.

Just sayin’. Not sayin’, just sayin’.

The transfer portal doesn’t officially open until April, not until the NCAA tournament has concluded. I suspect that we might get some information as to what is or is not happening with the rest of the Marquette roster before we get there, but there definitely won’t be any news about any new inbound players til then. With that in mind, let’s wrap up with the scholarship/roster chart so everyone’s on the same page as to what Marquette’s current situation is.

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