The Marquette boys basketball looks to have a solid mix of experience, size and talent returning entering the 2025-26 season.

However, the Crusaders will be without their two returning senior starters, top-scoring guard Alec Novotney and do-a-bit-of-everything Matt Graham, for at least the first couple months of the season.

“We’ll have some size which will help, and we’ll have some experience back as well,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said, who has accumulated a 178-90 record in just over nine seasons as head coach.

“We will be down a couple starters with Novotney out until probably the middle of January recovering from a [non-shooting/throwing, left] shoulder surgery and Matt out for a while, it’s really still unclear how long, with an injury he suffered to his shoulder during football. They both are such a great calming influence on the court, so that is an area that the rest of the guys are going to have to handle collectively.”

Novotney posted game averages of 20.3 points, 4.9 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 3.4 steals last year. He was named to the Husker Hardcourt Tip-Off, Shipyard Showdown and Tri-County Conference all-tournament teams. He became the seventh player in program history to surpass 1,000 career points in mid-January. He was a TCC first-team and IBCA Class 1A special mention selection.

Marquette, which finished last season 17-16 overall and 6-3 in Tri-County Conference action, also brings back starters in junior guard Griffin Dobberstein (11.7 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 4.3 apg, 2.3 spg, Times All-Area honorable mention, unanimous TCC second team) and 6-foot-3 junior forward Lucas Craig.

“Griffin and Lucas started for us all of last year and they are going to have to pick up on the offensive end early on and I know they both can,” Hopkins said.

“We saw last year that Griffin can score when needed, he can shoot from the outside or take it to the rim. He’s a kid that you’re going to find very hard to out work and he’s looked really good in practices so far.

“Lucas has really worked on his mid-range shot and it looks good. He is also playing more physical in practices and that will need to carry over into when games start. He’s come into this season with a lot more confidence in his abilities.”

Marquette will also be counting on junior guards Easton DeBernardi, Braxton Nelle, Ben Walker, Caden Durdan, as well as sophomore guards Nehemiyah Thomas and Sawyer Ernat, and forwards Connor Baker, Luke McCullough and Blayden Cassel.

“This group went through some growing pains last season,” Hopkins said. “Hopefully they can use those experiences this year, especially in the first two months without Alec and maybe Matt. McCullough and Cassel are going to have to play like upperclassmen, and the rest of the guys are going to have to step things up.

“This group is used to playing with each other as most of them played varsity minutes last season. One thing we had last year was toughness in down low from (graduated forward) Jaxon Rix, that ‘don’t mess with my guys’ type of player. We’re going to need some guys step into that role as well. Like every season we’ll need to care of the ball and rebound the ball a little better than we did last year.”

Marquette opens the season on Tuesday against Earlville at the Huskers Hardwood Tip-Off Tournament hosted by Serena. The Crusaders open their home and TCC season on Dec. 2 against DePue.