When Shaka Smart first arrived at Marquette in the spring of 2021, he had a pretty low bar set for him. At that point, Marquette fans just wanted to see the team be better than the sub-.500 team that they watched the previous season, which was MU’s first losing season since 2014 and just the second one since the beginning of the 21st century. Smart’s first Golden Eagles squad was picked to finish 9th in the Big East, but they easily surpassed that and by March 2022, they earned the program’s first NCAA tournament bid since 2019.
How Have Shaka Smart’s Teams Responded To Expectations In The Past?
