2024-25 Marquette Men’s Basketball Player Preview: #4 Stevie Mitchell

More of the same for his senior year, please

The 2024-25 college basketball season is right around the corner, so let’s dive into the Marquette men’s basketball roster and take a look at what to expect from each player this season. Going forward in these Player Previews, we’ll be going in this order: The two true freshmen in alphabetical order by last name — skipping past Josh Clark who is not expected to play this season — then the redshirt freshman, then the returning players in ascending order of average minutes played last season.

We’re going to organize our thoughts about the upcoming season as it relates to each player into categories, as we always do:

• Reasonable Expectations
• Why You Should Get Excited
• Potential Pitfalls

With that out of the way, we move along to the one guy on the team that is mostly speaking just gonna keep being him and we’re all going to love him for it…….

Stevie Mitchell

Senior — #4 — Guard — 6’3” — 200 lbs. — Reading, Pennsylvania

Now that he’s free of all of that freshman settling in, Stevie Mitchell just keeps being Stevie Mitchell. Over the last two seasons, he’s started in every one of his 69 appearances and is averaging 7.9 points, 3.5 rebounds, just under an assist, and 1.8 steals per game. He rarely turns the ball over, which makes him all the more dangerous in terms of tilting possession in Marquette’s favor. As a sophomore, Mitchell was #36 in the country in steal rate, and while posting the exact same rate as a junior, that ended up ranking #29 in the country. The 6’3” Pennsylvania native found a way to be one of the 100 most accurate two-point shooters in the country last season, which just helped boost his already very nice offensive efficiency.

This is all of the “we can count this, one way or another” stuff on the floor for the Golden Eagles. Mitchell has probably entered the upper echelon of Fan Favorite status amongst Marquette fans at this point, if only because of what he has apparently taken on as his mission on the basketball court. He has turned himself into a living, walking, talking embodiment of head coach Shaka Smart’s belief in the impact of Energy Generating Behaviors. Whether it’s a floor slap, a chest bump, a power clap, a high five, or a fist bump, Mitchell is the #1 guy that you can physically see his desire to fire his teammates up nearly every single second that he’s on the court. His energy is contagious, to be honest — that’s probably a lot of Smart’s belief in this as a positive concept for his team — and that contagion sweeps right past the edges of the court and right up into the stands at Fiserv Forum.

No, he’s never been the star of the show, or at least rarely in terms of leading the team in scoring or something like that. But you know what you’re getting every time that #4 jersey gets pulled on, and that’s alway worth the price of admission.

Reasonable Expectations

MOAR STEVIE MITCHELL THINGS, PLEASE.

That’s it.

Okay, FINE, we’ll look at the Torvik algorithm.

10.7 points, 3.9 rebounds, 1.6 assists, less than 28 minutes a game. You know what the funny part is? In my head, I instantly thought that the 28 minutes part is the silliest part of that….. but Mitchell hasn’t averaged even 27 minutes a night in the last two seasons. He got to 27.5 in Big East play last season and went all the way up to 32 after Tyler Kolek went out with injury through the NC State game that ended the year, but on average, nope, not 28 minutes.

I would also like it very much if Mitchell manages to shoot 33.3% from three-point range for an entire season. Sophomore year: 30% even. Junior year: 26.5%. Wrong direction, my friend! Marquette’s going to need whatever offensive pop they can find this season, at least until they find a post-Kolek & Ighodaro rhythm, so having Mitchell as a positive long range contributor is going to be kiiiind of a requirement. The good news in that department is that he shot 40.6% in Big East games….. but the bad news is he shot 2-for-9 when Tyler Kolek was hurt, and 22% is not so nice.

Why You Should Get Excited

I mean, if you aren’t fired up for another 30+ games of Stevie Mitchell hustle plays and Energy Generating Behaviors, please consult with your physician.

However, I would note that there’s a least a little bit of “hey, what if this thing happens?” involved with Mitchell’s final campaign in blue and gold.

Aside: I don’t think this picture is from the precise moment this exchange happened, but I do like Shaka Smart’s “well, dang it, we’re officially the Cussin At Media Day team now, huh” reaction face.

I’m not going to try and tell you that Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner didn’t deserve to be Big East Defensive Player of the Year for the third consecutive season last March. I am going to tell you that Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning are the only other two men to ever win it three times, and no, I do not think that “Just Big” Ryan Kalkbrenner is on their level.

I am also going to tell you that I think it would be very fun to watch Stevie Mitchell run wild across the country in an effort to stop Kalkbrenner from matching Ewing with a fourth straight DPOY trophy. It would seem that Kam Jones’ attitude on the topic tells us that the team in general is annoyed about this snub from last season, and if they all bond together to be a great defensive team in order to make Mitchell look even better in that regard….. well, who am I to complain about that?

Potential Pitfalls

I don’t even have The I Word as a problem to insert here. Mitchell missed four games with a hamstring issue in December last season, and then was in and out of a shoulder sleeve/brace towards the end of the campaign. None of this slowed him down other than the “Shaka Smart didn’t put him in a game” thing. Came back from the hamstring, went right on being Stevie Mitchell. Was probably never 100% from the hamstring, went right on being Stevie Mitchell. Tacked on a shoulder ding, went right on being Stevie Mitchell.

Other than that, the things that Stevie Mitchell excels at for Marquette are mostly speaking not the things that show up in a box score. He’s going to be able to keep on doing those things even if his shot isn’t working or whatever the misfortune of the day might be. I don’t really have a downside for him…… but I would really suggest not shooting under 27% on three-pointers again, no matter the long strange path to get there.