The 2026 summer tour of Canada is over for Marquette men’s basketball, and I can happily report that the Golden Eagles went 3-0 on their three game set in Vancouver. They wrapped up the series with a 102-65 victory over Fraser Valley on Saturday afternoon.

Of interest to the proceedings: Marquette did this shorthanded, as they were without Adrien Stevens due to illness. If you were watching the live stats and missed the update on Twitter, and thus wondered what was up: No reason to worry long term.

And now, 2:40 of highlights from the game:

As was the case with the first two games, there was no streaming broadcast of this contest. Everything you’re about to read comes at you by way of the live stats and the box score.

Quarter-By-Quarter Scores

For the third game in a row, this was contested with four 10 minutes quarters.

Quarter 1: Marquette 30, Fraser Valley 14
Quarter 2: Fraser Valley 28, Marquette 27
Quarter 3: Marquette 27, Fraser Valley 15
Quarter 4: Marquette 18, Fraser Valley 8

Yes, that is a quarter lost for Marquette, their one and only 10 minute loss of the tour. That 28 points is also the most that Marquette gave up in any of the 12 quarters that they played in Canada. Why do I have a feeling that fact had an impact on MU winning the second half 45-23?

In any case, that’s Marquette up 16 at the end of the first quarter, up 15 at halftime, up 27 after 30 minutes and then ultimately up 37 at the final horn. The largest lead was 40 points, which came at 97-57, off a Nolan Minessale and-1 with 4:21 left to go.

G: Nigel James
G: Damarius Owens
G: Nolan Minessale
F: Royce Parham
C: Sananda Fru

As always, this is the order they checked in for the first time in the game.

Ethan Johnston: 8:54, first quarter
Caedin Hamilton: 6:42, first quarter
Alex Egbuonu: 6:07, first quarter
Michael Phillips: 5:24, first quarter
Josh Clark: 4:09, first quarter
Ian Miletic: 2:42, first quarter
Colton Crowdis: 2:34, fourth quarter
Braeden Brenn: 1:58, fourth quarter

Did Not Play: The only two are Adrien Stevens, who was out with illness, and Nash Walker, who was not 100% cleared from labrum surgery a month ago and so we are not surprised that he was not active for the entire trip.

That is the first action of the entire trip for Colton Crowdis and Braeden Brenn. We know Brenn as a walk-on for the past few years. I’m feeling pretty confident about my idea to just skip writing a player preview for Crowdis in October.

Effective Field Goal Percentage

Marquette: 56.5%
Fraser Valley: 36.0%

Marquette: 18.8%
Fraser Valley: 25.9%

Offensive Rebounding Rate

Marquette: 45.9%
Fraser Valley: 32.0%

Marquette: 53.6%
Fraser Valley: 35.3%

Marquette: 1.20
Fraser Valley: 0.76

Leading Scorer: Michael Phillips, with 15 points on 5-for-6 shooting in 17 minutes
Leading Rebounder: Sananda Fru, with nine rebounds in 20 minutes
Leading Passer: Nigel James, with seven assists in 22 minutes
Leading Thief: Nigel James, Royce Parham (22 minutes), and Alex Egbuonu (18 minutes), each with three steals
Leading Swatter: Josh Clark, with three blocks in 15 minutes
Foul Merchants: Nolan Minessale played just 14 minutes here because he had four personal fouls. He had two in the first 1:06 of the game and three by midway through the second quarter. I gotta point out that Minessale had four fouls in 23 minutes in the Calgary game, too. He had two in 20 minutes against Trinity Western, so no reason for full fledged panic here, although his fouls-per-40 numbers against top 100 opponents last season for St. Thomas were not good.

Unanswered Run Of The Game

16-0, from 1:06 left in the third to 3:52 left in the fourth

I believe that’s the only double-digit run of the game for the Golden Eagles, although they had several runs of 7 or 8 or 9 points in a row up til that point. It’s not like MU was in danger before the run started, as the score was 81-57 with 70 seconds left in the third quarter.

10 points, six rebounds, three blocks, an assist, a steal, all in 15 minutes. Pretty good.

5-for-8 shooting when he’s really not supposed to be shooting from further than four feet away from the rim and a pair of turnovers? Not great for 15 minutes. But perhaps I’m nitpicking.

The good news is that Clark was on the floor as Marquette expanded their lead from seven points to 14 points in a three-plus minute stretch in the first quarter, making him a +7 in that part of the game. The eh news is that Clark was a +1 for his remaining 12ish minutes of action. The last six of that was the last six minutes of the game, and MU only expanded their lead by two points there, so Clark was a -1 for the other six. Marquette was firmly in control at that point and the first quarter minutes were actually important, so I don’t want to go too far overboard…. but the fact of the matter is that there remain signs that Clark’s not impacting the game.

The Ian Miletic Of It All

With an 0-for-3 here, two of which were inside the arc attempts, Miletic is coming home from this trip after shooting 1-for-9 in 31 minutes. He went 0-for-4 from behind the three-point line across all three games.

One last time, let’s check in on Sananda Fru and Nolan Minessale, both of whom appear to be ticketed for spots in the starting lineup on opening night.

Fru: 10 points on 3-for-9 shooting, 0-for-1 behind the three-point line, 4-for-6 from the free throw line, a team high nine rebounds, plus two fouls and three turnovers in 20 minutes.

Minessale: 11 points on 4-for-6 shooting, 1-for-2 behind the three-point line, 2-for-3 from the free throw line, five rebounds, two assists, two steals, four fouls, and two turnovers in 14 minutes.

There was enough other stuff going right for Marquette here that the turnovers didn’t matter all that much, and besides: Nigel James committed four of MU’s 16 giveaways in this game. 3-for-9 for Fru is not great, even if you just say 3-for-8 if you wipe out the three-point attempt. You have to figure that Minessale would have had a bigger impact on the game if not for two personal fouls almost immediately in the game and three by the midpoint of the second quarter. 11/5/2/2 is still a great 14 minute outing, and depending on what else was going on around him, I wouldn’t exactly say no to that kind of performance in 29 minutes.

With just a box score to muddle through, it’s hard to see everything or have everything important jump out at you. This is what I saw, what jumped out at me. What did you see in the stats that looks important to you? Sound off in the comments about whatever’s on your mind!

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