After a few days of hopes and rumors, reports from Draft Express indicate that 6’9″ big man Sananda Fru has committed to Marquette, becoming the first D1 transfer MU has taken since 2021. It’s kind of a big deal. But now that the bridge has been crossed, the only question that matters is, is he any good?
He’s excellent. And more importantly, would appear to fit in extremely well into the system Marquette runs on both ends of the floor.
Impact metrics
There will be 47 rankings and none will be close to what the other says, so I don’t put much stock in that. But I do use Evan Miya’s site heavily to measure player impact and, in his model, Fru is a top-5 transfer. His BPR projects to be 7.08 next season. For reference, Nigel led the way for MU last season at 4.94 and only 3 players under Shaka have ever posted a BPR over 7 (Kam ’25, Kolek ’24, ’23, Oso ’24).
Hoop explorer is also very high on his impact last season. Playing in 54.8% of Louiville’s non-garbage time possessions, where he posted an RAPM of +7.0 last season, tied for 90th best in the country.
So before we even get to know him, a cursory glance at two advance models tell us he is a proven high-major player that has already made a significant impact on a tournament team. Add in his previous experience in Germany and the fact he’ll be a senior and this isn’t a lottery ticket hoping he’ll pan out, this is Marquette getting an immediate impact player.
What’s he good at?
Remember in December when I wrote about how none of the MU bigs could score at the rim? Fru is the exact opposite. He shot 78.3% at the rim on 152 attempts this season (per Bart Torvik), including 62 dunks. For comparison Ben Gold, Caedin Hamilton and Josh Clark combined to shoot only 55.8% at the rim on 163 attempts, with only 23 dunks.
Here’s a good representation of where his shots came from. He knew what he was (an inside scorer) and did that extremely well.
Your next question should then be, ok that’s great, but how did he get that many attempts? And the answers here are even more exciting than the raw field goal percentage.
Lousiville ran a modern offense with heavy guard usage and lots of movement, particularly in pick and roll action. Sound familiar? He’s not a post up threat. He doesn’t really create much for others. You can’t just dump it into him and watch him work.
But in an offense where he can be a screener and finisher, he’s the kind of player that will thrive. And don’t just take my word for it, look at how his cut and P&R Roll Man stats pop off the Synergy page.
This is a player that has good hands and can both catch and finish on the move. He isn’t uber athletic playing above the rim but does use his length well. If a Synergy table isn’t your thing, seeing Hoop-Explorer’s breakdown with Fru above and Ben Gold (last season’s primary big) below.
You can see that it’s just a completely different type of player. Whereas Ben was a high volume perimeter shooter (with poor efficiency), Fru is a classic inside big, with high volume and efficiency grades for cut & rolls, inside out passing and rebound scrambles. This isn’t meant as a shot against Ben, just simply highlighting why I’m so high on Fru as an upgrade to this offense.
And in case charts and graphs aren’t your thing, I pulled some highlights of his rolls later in the season after picks. This is mouthwatering next to a guard like Nigel.
For further context, Fru’s PPP of 1.319 off rolls when setting a screen ranked 35th of all players last season, minimum 40 possessions per Synergy. One of the only handful of high major player to best that? Royce Parham, 3rd best at 1.500 PPP on 60 possessions. Between Fru and Parham, with a wizard like Nigel on the ball, Marquette will boast one of the best P&R attacks in the country.
What about the D?
To answer the first question I know you’re already asking, no, he is not a great defensive rebounder. Per KenPom, he only grabbed 16% of available boards on that end, which was worse than Ben’s 17.5% last year. That isn’t to say he’s a bad rebounder, he did up it to 18.8% in ACC play, 15th best in the conference, but rather he won’t be single handedly tilting the scales on that end.
But don’t take his lack of rebounding prowess as a full assessment of his defensive arsenal. He’s great on that side of the ball. He ranked 20th in the ACC last season in DRAPM on Hoop-Explorer and 28th in DBPR in Evan Miya’s.
While he doesn’t wow you with his athleticism, he has great footwork and is able to switch onto smaller guards and stay in front of them with regularity. Per Synergy, Fru only gave up 0.525 PPP on isolations where he was the sole defender, ranking in the 86th percentile nationally and 7th best in the ACC minimum 25 possessions.
This is one of the most important traits for an MU big in Shaka’s system. With the amount of perimeter pressure they like to apply and the heavy switching that occurs, having a center that can at minimum hold their own for a few possessions a game is a huge plus.
Don’t get me wrong. There is much, much more to defense than guarding a guy straight up. Oso Ighodaro is probably the best defending big I’ve seen since I became a fan of Marquette, and he wasn’t a brick wall. I haven’t seen enough of Fru on that end to make any larger assessments as to how he reads the game on D (Oso’s superpower), but at minimum, Marquette has a bit more security now than it has since Oso left with Fru.
The biggest reason I’m giddy over Fru’s addition is that he was able to put up great stats without being in a drop-coverage system where his only responsibility was to park the bus under the rim. Some of the bigs Marquette was associated with this past week were in primarily drop coverage schemes. That’s not to say they would be bad or MU couldn’t adjust its scheme, but with Fru, he’s a plug and play type. You can put him in the current scheme without wondering how he would fit at all.
And for the record, Fru’s block rate of 7.2% on KenPom would be the best for any rotation player under Shaka since Kur Kuath’s 13.4% in 2022. He isn’t elite by any stretch, but again, he uses his length and bursts very well to impact shots. I don’t know how much of this is skill or luck, but in Synergy, opponents only shot 22.2% from 3 on spot ups when Fru was the closest defender.
Grade?
Landing Sananda Fru is an expectation-raiser for Marquette. It had a gaping hole at center that could not by any means be filled with 40 combined minutes from the returning players. But it didn’t just land a fill-in, it upgraded to one of the most impactful bigs available in the portal, and, if the numbers thrown around on social media are correct, spent heavily to do so.
The biggest negative I’ve seen from digging through smart Louisville accounts is he was bothered by physical play on boths ends of the court. He had stretches where he’d lose focus and he finished the year slower after a relatively great middle of the year. He probably won’t average 30 minutes a game, or 27 for that matter. He didn’t play 30 minutes once at Lousiville last season.
But what he will give you is 25 minutes of offense and defense tailor-made for Shaka’s schemes, with a supporting cast that plays perfectly into his strengths. He has a very high floor and raises Marquette’s expectations significantly.
This is an A+ pickup.
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