‘Community has been a big thing for me’: Eastern Washington retains leading scorer Andrew Cook and leading rebounder Emmett Marquardt

During Eastern Washington University’s spring break this week, Emmett Marquardt went back to Seattle, settled about his decision to stay with the Eagles men’s basketball program next season.

Marquardt came to a similar conclusion almost exactly a year ago, when head coach Dan Monson, then newly hired, told Marquardt he would honor the previous staff’s promise to get the Eagles forward on full scholarship, a gesture Marquardt said was particularly meaningful to him.

But loyalty to a community has long been important to Marquardt, who said he was guided by that principle when he decided to remain with the program for at least a third season.

“All my elementary, middle school and high school were within a two-mile radius, so community has been a big thing for me,” Marquardt said by phone Wednesday from his family’s home in Seattle. “My community was like a village. That’s what helped me become the person I am now.”

Marquardt said he’s found that community at Eastern, and while five of his teammates decided this week that transferring was the best choice for them, staying was the best choice for Marquardt.

He wasn’t the only one who chose to stay, either. Senior Andrew Cook, granted another year by the NCAA because of his previous seasons spent at an NAIA program, said on Wednesday he will come back to Eastern Washington for the 2025-26 campaign.

“I felt like this was the best opportunity for me to really showcase (my skills), and I really wanted to be part of this rebuild that we have going,” Cook said by phone from his family’s home in Southern California. “I feel like we can get the right guys and we can really improve from what we did last year. That (opportunity) was something that I felt like I couldn’t say no to.”

The confirmed return of Cook and Marquardt means that the Eagles will have back their leading scorer in Cook (15.8 points per game) and their leading rebounder in Marquardt (4.4 per game).

At this point five Eagles players have entered the transfer portal. That includes three of their four most productive scorers in Mason Williams (13.9 points per game), Nic McClain (10.6) and Sebastian Hartmann (9.3), as well as rotation player Vice Zanki (37 of 113 from 3-point range) and Jackson Seale, who played 82 total minutes last season.

Now four days after the portal opened – and still a few weeks before it closes on April 22 – the Eagles roster still includes Tyler Powell, who started 16 of 29 games as a redshirt junior, as well as Elijah Thomas and Angelo Winkel, reserve players to saw an increased role toward the end of their junior seasons.

Marquardt said that while Cook’s decision to stay didn’t directly impact his own, he is excited that the team’s leading scorer will be back.

“Having a player like Cookie come back, knowing he’s going to be coming out on the floor with me, it makes everything feel better,” Marquardt said. “He’s staying here and doubling down.”

Cook said he respects the choices of those who opted to transfer and that “no one is upset with them.”

“It all made sense, and we fully support them,” Cook said. “I do feel like with the guys that are coming back now, we all now have lots of experience that I feel like we can really lean on, and when the new (recruits) come in, too, they can just follow up and we can show them the roles of how the coaches like to handle things.”

Monson and the rest of the coaching staff now gets a full offseason to repopulate the roster around those who are returning, something Marquardt said was a factor in his own optimism.

“I trust them to bring in a group of guys who are going to come in and do the right things and win,” Marquardt said.

Across the Big Sky’s 10 teams, 42 players have entered the transfer portal, according to recruiting tracker verbalcommits.com

Every team has at least two players in the portal, while Northern Arizona has the most with eight players.