Is the sophomore guard ready to take a step forward?
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 a guy who has a big opportunity in front of him if he’s ready to grab onto it……..
Tre Norman
Sophomore — #5 — Guard — 6’4” — 210 lbs. — Boston, Massachusetts
As a top 100 ranked freshman, I think we all thought that Tre Norman had a real chance to make an impact on the Golden Eagles last season. We can’t say that this really happened during Norman’s freshman year, because at the end of the day, he only averaged only two points and barely over a rebound per game in nine minutes. However, as we pointed out in the end of season review, if we start segmenting things out, we can start to see that the coaching staff started leaning a little bit more on Norman.
In fact, when the Golden Eagles were without Tyler Kolek towards the end of last year, Norman averaged 2.8 points and 1.7 rebounds per game in 12 minutes a night. No, that’s not mindblowing type stuff, but when it’s so far above his average for the season, you realize how little Norman had going on before that. This is particularly notable because 1) Marquette is going to have a grand total of zero Tyler Kolek this season because he’s currently tearing up the preseason for the New York Knicks and 2) it’s very questionable as to whether Marquette is going to get any Sean Jones to take backcourt minutes at all this season as well.
Reasonable Expectations
We’re keeping this inside the bounds of “let’s not be crazy” here. We all think that Kam Jones, Stevie Mitchell, and Chase Ross are going to start for Marquette, right? If that’s the case, those guys are going to play between 25 and 30 minutes a game…… and so anything Tre Norman does has to fit in around that. He can probably play with any two of them and could easily be part of a four-guard rotation and play some decent minutes as a result.
In fact, Marquette is going to have at least 30 minutes a game available. Quite honestly, the state of play here means that Norman needs to play some extended minutes just to fill time on the court. I don’t think that Damarius Owens and Zaide Lowery can take point guard minutes like Norman can, so there’s a need for him to play and contribute, at the very least until Sean Jones can find his way back to availability.
This might mean that Norman struggles to get past the 10 minute a game mark, by the way. It depends on exactly how much Shaka Smart wants Kam Jones to play the point guard role on the roster as opposed to his off/shooting guard role from last season. If Jones is capable of doing stuff like the 15 points and 11 assists we saw from him in the Open Scrimmage, then that’s probably going to mean that Marquette doesn’t need Norman to excel in that role.
All of that is to say that when the BartTorvik.com algorithm says that Norman’s projected to average 4.0 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 1.2 assists in less than 15 minutes a night, maaaaaaybe take it seriously, and also wonder if it’s maybe overshooting things.
Why You Should Get Excited
Usually I try to attach some kind of “here’s a thing we saw for 40 seconds at least to make me wonder about the top end possibilities” situation to this section. I don’t have this for Norman, not really. All I have for that is that I got the sense he was hesitant for a lot of last season but when the confidence emerged, he was looking much better.
So stick with me on the Vibes Check here: If Shaka Smart imbues him with the confidence to play at his best AND the staff decides that MU needs more of a point guard on the floor than whatever combo guard play that Kam Jones gives them, then it is Tre Norman’s time to shine, baybay!
I would like this to happen. I don’t have evidence to back this up. I just think it would be neat and fun if Marquette was playing winning basketball while Tre Norman was emerging as a notable contributor. It’s fun to watch guys make jumps as a player, and it’s fun to watch it happening while good things are happening for the team.
Potential Pitfalls
But what if it doesn’t come together for Norman?
We can’t ignore the fact that he shot under 19% from three-point land last season. We can’t ignore the fact that he shot under 18% in 19 games of Big East play. Sure, maybe the problem is that he wasn’t getting consistent minutes and maybe just getting into a rhythm is important. If you’re going to play point guard or lead guard or just guard of any kind for Marquette, you have to be able to be an interesting three-point threat on this team. If that’s not coming together for Norman, then Marquette’s going to have to look in other directions for minutes. If that combines with Kam Jones throwing double-doubles around like candy, then that’s a real problem for Norman’s possibilities. If the backcourt rotation is better served by more of Zaide Lowery and Damarius Owens than Norman, that’s just how it has to go to win ballgames.