Can the big man from California step in and contribute in a notable way after a redshirt season?
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 our first preview about a guy who was on the roster last season, but it’s a guy that we haven’t seen play for the Golden Eagles quite yet……..
Caedin Hamilton
Redshirt Freshman — #35 — Forward — 6’9” — 250 lbs. — Santa Maria, California
Caedin Hamilton was a late addition to the 2023 recruiting class. Like, very late. Like, announced by him on August 1st and announced by the team on August 2nd late. That’s less than a month before the start of classes late. He elected to reclassify into the Class of 2023 and redshirt at Marquette instead of heading to a prep school for a year and then enrolling in college. As a result, he’s already got a year of classes — Big East All-Academic Team honors! — under his belt as well as a year of weight room training and practice time with the team.
He was at St. Joseph High School in Santa Maria, California for the 2022-23 school year, averaging 12.9 points and 10.3 rebounds while earning all-area Defensive Player of the Year from the local newspaper. I’m guessing that the nearly two blocks per game also helped in that department. Because Hamilton was headed to a prep school in the Northeast, the existing connections between MU’s coaching staff, specifically Cody Hatt, led to MU paying attention to him during the recruiting periods in the summer of 2023. Eventually, that conversation and attention led to the decision to head to Marquette instead of prep school.
Here’s a two minute highlight reel from July 2023, which is right about when Shaka Smart was watching every single game to evaluate Hamilton.
Reasonable Expectations
Let’s start with this: BartTorvik.com doesn’t include Hamilton in the algorithm’s top 10 projected contributors for Marquette this season. This should not immediately make you say “oh, well, he’s not going to do anything for MU this year.” That’s the nature of a computer system looking at a completely unheralded big man recruit coming out of a redshirt first year of college. I get where the computer is coming from here. Everything about Caedin Hamilton on paper says “developmental project, will take time to be a role player, much less an impact player.”
But Marquette needs someone to be the backup center on this team. Ben Gold is ostensibly the starting center, and there’s very little about Gold’s game that says “yes, is a proven 30 minute a night post defender.” Size-wise, sure, but that’s about it. There is a way for Hamilton to earn minutes on the floor as a backup big man, giving Gold a chance to chug a cup of Gatorade and catch his breath. Is it a lot of minutes? Maybe not, but there’s a role to be had for someone here, and why not Hamilton? Heck, there’s a possibility that there’s minutes to be earned playing alongside Gold, as the big Kiwi might have a better future as a stretch 4 than a 5 man.
Why You Should Get Excited
I want to repeat a couple of lines that I wrote in August 2023 after watching approximately 60 seconds of Caedin Hamilton footage on the internet.
I can’t speak to the level of competition, but am I seeing some proto-Ighodaro in what Hamilton’s doing here? Yeah, I think that’s safe to say.
I feel incredibly smart right now. Proto-Oso Ighodaro is what I saw from Hamilton at the Open Scrimmage in early October. Here’s what I wrote in my notebook from the scrimmage:
First and foremost: Caedin Hamilton, even though he’s listed at 6’9” and 240 pounds, is far from being a traditional back-to-the-basket center. He’s not exactly Oso Ighodaro either, but there’s a more than a tinge of Oso in his game. At the very least, practicing against Oso all of last season has rubbed off on Hamilton a bit. I saw him throw a bounce pass into the lane from the top of the key to hit a cutter for a layup, and I saw him drive (!) from the wing to the middle of the lane, spin (!) away from the defenders, and hit Zaide Lowery on the baseline for a cut to the rim, and I saw Hamilton drive (!) to the post, stop short, and then body Josh Clark in an attempt to score but ended up drawing the foul.
He’s clearly not at Senior Year Oso Ighodaro levels of contributing to the offense, I want to make this 100% obvious. The fact that 1) Hamilton is trying these things and 2) that they’re reasonably successful means that 1) the coaching staff wants him playing like this and 2) he’s comfortable doing them, too.
Does this mean instant and heavy minutes for him? Hardly, but if your friends suddenly start asking you “who the heck is this big man who came out of nowhere for Marquette,” well, just remember that I pointed this out to you first.
Potential Pitfalls
I can’t help but wonder if Hamilton’s offensive skills that were on display at the Open Scrimmage are a by-product of playing against his Marquette teammates. How much of it was merely there because he has figured out that he can beat Josh Clark to a spot on the floor, and if that’s the case and we know Josh Clark is Not Ready For Prime Time, then how ready is Hamilton for minutes against Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner or even UConn’s Samson Johnson?
The flipside of that is the fact that Josh Clark was running wild in the second half of the Open Scrimmage. Look, the Marquette offensive structure is designed to force big man defenders into making coverage decisions that allow for alley-oops and one-step dunks. To a certain extent, Hamilton might have been making the defensive read that the coaches want him to make, and Clark going nuts isn’t his fault. But then again, when the game turns into the other team’s center hammering dunk after dunk after dunk, well, that’s probably a little bit your problem, right? And if Hamilton’s not ready to defend Josh Clark….. well, you see the problem, right? Especially on a team where the coaching staff is already telling everyone who will listen that the 2024-25 roster has to buckle down and defend harder than ever.