
Marquette women's basketball has secured commitments from recruits MacKenzie Givens and Ainoah Rio for the 2026-27 season. These additions aim to strengthen the team's roster.
This is the best picture of MacKenzie Givens I could find from Getty or USA Today. All the Getty pictures are her in context against UConn. | Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images
The Marquette womenâs basketball roster continues to update for the 2026-27 season. We got two updates for the roster on Thursday, one thatâs pretty straight forward, and one that Iâm not 100% sure as to the details.
Letâs start with the one thatâs less of a mystery.
You might remember MacKenzie Givens from such Xavier teams as â2025-26, when they went 11-19 overall and 4-16 in the Big Eastâ or â2024-25, when they went 7-24 overall and 1-17 in the Big East.â Okay, thatâs a little bit unfair to Givens, as she played in just 16 games as a freshman, and only two of those were before Christmas. This past year, she was Xavierâs #2 scorer, averaging 11.7 points. Givens added 4.4 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game, too.
Givens, who is listed by Xavier as a 6â0â guard/forward, may have been the Musketeersâ most impactful player last season. She led the team in PORPAGATU! on BartTorvik.com, which is a measure of your efficiency at your usage rate, and when youâre the only player with an offensive rating over 100âŠ. or even over 90âŠ. and your usage is under 20% â think somewhere between Lee Volker & Halle Vice relative to Marquette â thatâs a pretty quick way to get your PRPG! up. Givens was an effective offensive rebounder, falling just short of a 10% rate, and her turnover rate was under 16%, which tells us that in both departments, Xavierâs struggles there were not her fault in the slightest.
If Marquette is looking to have a layups & threes type of offense, Givens is a potential helper there. Her 69% shooting on what Torvik calls âclose 2sâ is superb, and I have to wonder if she would do better on threes if she had more help. Givens only hit 31.6% of her three-pointers this season, but that could be a developing part of her game as she was just 1-for-4 as a freshman. Xavier was #284 in the country in three-point shooting this past season, and that was with Givens as one of their two best options at the arc. What happens to her shooting when she plays with Halle Vice (40% this past season) and Jordan Meulemans (33.7%)? Does the gravitational pull of better shooters make Givens a better shooter?
The new commitments are MacKenzie Givens and Ainoah Rio.
They will join the team for the 2026-27 season.
Their commitments are expected to strengthen Marquette's roster for the upcoming season.
MacKenzie Givens previously played for the Xavier Musketeers.

Live updates on 2026 NBA Draft announcements for top prospects!
See every story in Sports â including breaking news and analysis.
Hereâs where we have to do a little Internet Detective work to figure out what the Golden Eagles have in Ainoah Rio. Thankfully, sheâs had experience playing for a pair of French junior national teams, so FIBA is going to pick up a lot of the slack here. Thatâs where we find out that Rio is listed at 6â2â â or at least she was when she last appeared in a FIBA event in 2024 â and that sheâs going to turn 20 next month. The 6â2â part is particularly useful here, as Marquette lists her as a center in the commitment graphic that they made for her.
Her two junior team events were the 2022 U16 Womenâs European Championship and the 2024 U18 Eurobasket. The good news is that France won both events, so Rio was a part of that. The medium news is that itâs clear she wasnât a major part of either teamâs path to a title. She averaged 3.5 points and 2.4 rebounds in the 12 games she played across the two events, and digging deeper into her game logs, Rio didnât play at all in the championship game of either event. The title games were also the only two competitive games that France played in either tournament, as there was a lot of âbeat Belgium in the quarterfinals, 87-48â going on.
Elsewhere in the basketball world, Rio has been playing in the second division French league for at least the past four years. She was with Pole France before moving to La Tronche Meylan for the past two seasons. For the 25-26 season, she averaged 4.8 points and 4.0 rebounds, and itâs worth mentioning that she shot 37% from behind the three-point line, too.
This seems pretty decent, but it does introduce a few questions here and there. How does her junior national team performance and her La Tronche Meylan performance translate to NCAA Division 1? Since sheâs already 20 years old, or at least will be by the time we get to next season, what does that mean for her eligibility, not to mention her time in the French second division? What does it mean for Marquetteâs rotation if sheâs the tallest player on the roster â and she is right now â but isnât quite up to the level needed to compete for an NCAA tournament berth, and what if she has to come in with not a full four years of eligibility?
Hereâs the newest scholarship chart.
Until Marquette puts out a press release on Ainoah Rio, I can not say for certain exactly 1) when sheâs actually starting with Marquette, although the obvious presumption is right away or 2) how many years of eligibility she will have. Thatâs why Iâm dropping her onto the 2026-27 roster at the bottom without a tint to her square right now. Weâll update once Cara Consuegraâs office gets us some clarity on the issue. Shouldnât be more than a couple of days here, but it is what it is for now.
Givens and Rio bring Marquette to 11 players for 2026-27. Itâs not ideal that only six of those women have ever played in a Division 1 game before, and if weâre being honest about it, itâs kind of hard to count Kam Herring in that department after this past season. Itâs helpful that JJ Barnes has been through a season of D1 hoops even if she was rehabbing her injury for the entire time, and itâs helpful that Brooklyn Hall has a few months of D1 practice under her belt after enrolling mid-season at South Florida.
Is this enough to compete for the Not-UConn Big East title next season? Is this a better roster than what Cara Consuegra had last year? Heck, is she done with this roster? Four spots remain open, so itâs definitely possible that we could see a few more names get added to the list here.
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook:Â AnonymousEagle
Instagram:Â AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky:Â AnonymousEagle