Shaka Smart, Dwyane Wade Keep Marquette In The Spotlight During Final Four Weekend

A second-round loss ended Marquette’s hopes of advancing to the Final Four but the Golden Eagles were well-represented nonetheless as college basketball’s final-weekend extravaganza opened Saturday night in Houston as head coach Shaka Smart was named the national coach of the year by the Associated Press and former standout Dwyane Wade was voted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Entering his second season at Marquette, little was expected of Smart’s squad. The Golden Eagles were picked to finish ninth in the Big East in preseason balloting but made those prognosticators look silly by going 29-7 overall and 17-3 in the Big East to win their first-ever outright regular-season title in that league then followed that with their first-ever Big East Tournament title.

As a result, the Golden Eagles earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament — the highest seed in program history and opened the tourney with a 78-61 victory over Vermont before bowing out with a 69-60 loss to No. 7 Michigan State.

“I’m very grateful to win this award,” said Smart, a Wisconsin native who grew up in Madison, Wis. “Obviously it always comes back to the guys you have on your team. “Early on,” Smart said, “we had a real sense the guys had genuine care and concern for one another, and we had a very good foundation for relationships that we could continue to build on. And over the course of seasons, you go through so many different experiences as a team. And those experiences either bring you closer together or further apart.

“Our guys did a great job, even through adverse experiences, even through challenges, becoming closer together.”

Wade played just two seasons at Marquette but they were among the most successful in program history.

After sitting out his freshman year as a partial academic qualifier, Wade averaged 17.8 points, 6.6 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 2.5 steals as the Golden Eagles went 26-7 (13-3 Conference USA) to earn their first NCAA Tournament berth since 1997 — their first under head coach Tom Crean.

Marquette, a five-seed in the East Region, failed to get out of the first round but still finished the year ranked 12th in the AP poll.

Wade was named the league’s preseason player of the year heading into his junior season and lived up to that billing by leading the league in points (710), scoring (21.5/game), field goals (251) and free throws (194). With Wade leading the way, the Golden Eagles went 27-6 overall and 14-2 in league play to win the Conference USA regular-season title.

They were knocked out of the conference tournament in the first round but still earned a 3-seed in the NCAA Tournament, knocking off Holy Cross, Missouri and Pittsburg to set up a showdown with top-ranked and top-seeded Kentucky for a trip to the Final Four.

Again, Wade set the tone, posting a triple-double with 29 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists as well as four bocks and a steal as Marquette advanced to its first Final Four since 1977 with an 83-69 rout of the Wildcats.

The dream season ended a week later with a 94-61 loss to Kansas. Wade scored a team-high 19 points in what turned out to be his final game in a Marquette uniform. He opted to forgoe his senior season and enter the NBA Draft. Miami took him with the fifth overall pick and just three years later, Wade won the first of three NBA Championships.

He’d spend 16 years in the league, earning 13 All-Star invitations, winning the 2009 scoring title and landing a spot on the NBA’s 75th Anniversary team in 2021.

Marquette retired his No. 3 in 2006 while the Heat did the same in 2020.

To be able to have the relationship that we have with Dwyane Wade and the way that he feels about Marquette — I still remember sitting in my little living room in Dayton, Ohio, watching Dwyane Wade put up a triple-double against Kentucky to go to the Final Four in 2003,” Smart said. “And now to be able to coach at his school is pretty cool.

“Dwyane Wade is a guy that I think for someone that’s that level of a superstar, he’s got incredible humility, and he truly cares about where he came from. He’s been on our campus four times in the last calendar year. He spoke at graduation. He came back and celebrated his Final Four team multiple times. He came back and spent time with his teammates, with our players, with other folks on campus.

“And I’m really, really grateful for the connection that we have with him because I look at him and I see a guy who literally is one of the top guys to ever do it at that position.”

Former Marquette coaches Al McGuire, Eddie Hickey and Tex Winter have all been enshrined in the Hall but Wade