{"id":700382,"date":"2026-05-28T16:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/700382\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T16:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:42:11","slug":"2025-26-marquette-mens-basketball-player-review-0-nigel-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/700382\/","title":{"rendered":"2025-26 Marquette Men\u2019s Basketball Player Review: #0 Nigel James"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reasonable Expectations<\/p>\n

The word \u201creasonable\u201d is the thing that we have to hold on to here, because of the fact that James has ultimately turned into the most heralded recruiting prospect in the Class of 2025 for Marquette. By default, that should sound an awful lot like he should be at the very least a notable contributor for the Golden Eagles this fall.<\/p>\n

Except we could have said the same thing for Damarius Owens last year when he came in as a top 70 prospect in the 247 Sports Composite rankings and he averaged less than 10 minutes a game. If I was writing a Summer Vibe Check for Marquette going into this year, I probably would have skipped Owens as a Notable Returning Player. The year before, Tre Norman was a top 90 prospect in the 247 Composite, and two years later, we\u2019re still waiting to see him pop out as a notable contributor for the Golden Eagles.<\/p>\n

You see my point here.<\/p>\n

But with Marquette returning just one guard who averaged over 16 minutes a game last season and just two players who cleared that number in general, we can easily say that the door is open for Nigel James to carve out a space for himself right away on this roster. That\u2019s even more so the case given that he is listed at just six feet tall and is therefore going to be asked to be a point guard on this team one way or another. It might be as a two point guard combination backcourt as Shaka Smart alluded to in that quote up above, but that\u2019s still going to mean he\u2019s playing some point guard for the Golden Eagles.<\/p>\n

How much should we reasonable expect to see him this year? Well, the BartTorvik.com computer projections<\/a> for Marquette\u2019s roster say 30% of the minutes. In a 40 minute game, that\u2019s 12 minutes a night with 3.8 points and 1.4 assists per game. The catch is that\u2019s expecting 26 minutes from Sean Jones and nearly 15 from Tre Norman. Are you convinced that both of those things are going to happen? Depending on what your answer is, then adjust your reasonable expectations for Nigel James accordingly.<\/p>\n

Why You Should Get Excited<\/p>\n

The door is open for Nigel James to be Marquette\u2019s starting\/primary point guard. Maybe it\u2019s not open a lot, but it\u2019s definitely ajar.<\/p>\n

The thing I just pointed out at the end of the reasonable expectations is the reason why you should be excited about what Nigel James can do in his first season with the Golden Eagles. If he proves to be a reliable and dependable point guard option for Marquette, then the coaching staff needs to let him run the show. I don\u2019t usually use this section to point out the problems and question marks around the rest of the roster, but the fact of the matter is that we haven\u2019t seen Sean Jones play in a Division 1 game since January 10, 2024. That is a LONG TIME ago, and presuming he can just be The Guy for MU is a mistake. At least we\u2019ve seen enough from Jones to say \u201cwell, if he\u2019s healthy and if he\u2019s improved, then sure, I can see it,\u201d because we can\u2019t say that we\u2019ve seen enough from Norman to put a big expectation on him.<\/p>\n

Which leaves us with the chance that Nigel James grabs the brass ring and takes off with it.<\/p>\n

You wanna just watch him throw assists for 25 minutes?<\/p>\n

Potential Pitfalls<\/p>\n

He has to be able to defend.<\/p>\n

Marquette has been a top 50 KenPom.com defense the past three seasons, and top 30 each of the last two. That identity is not changing as long as Shaka Smart\u2019s in charge. It\u2019s especially not changing now that Marquette is going into a season without a guy that you can at least imagine will be an All-American at point guard, which is what we\u2019ve seen the last two years. At the very least, until some roles get sorted out, Marquette is going to have to lean back on their defense to win ball games, and that\u2019s going to mean that if Nigel James wants to play real minutes at point guard, he has to defend.<\/p>\n

And remember: He\u2019s listed at six feet tall. Listed. That\u2019s the second fakest height in sports, right behind the \u201cno one is ever going to believe you\u2019re six feet tall\u201d listed height of 5\u201911\u201d. All apologies to our Short King friends out there, but it\u2019s easier to defend at the Division 1 level if you\u2019re taller. There\u2019s just more of you to take up space! It\u2019s physics! That\u2019s a thing that James is going to have to overcome. I\u2019ve seen videos of him dunking the basketball at just six feet tall, so clearly he\u2019s got athleticism to him to help bridge the gap between size and capacity to defend.<\/p>\n

But he has to actually do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reasonable Expectations The word \u201creasonable\u201d is the thing that we have to hold on to here, because of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,341038,341039,3025,3026,85],"class_list":["post-700382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-marquette-player-profiles","tag-marquette-player-reviews","tag-marquette-basketball","tag-marquette-mens-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}