Marquette Basketball: 5 storylines for Golden Eagles in 2020 offseason
By Brian Foley
Where can Marquette find backcourt help?
Are you a guard going through the transfer process? Then this is probably a live look at your living room once Marquette reaches out:
The MU coaching staff is clearly not in love with the current backcourt rotation that includes McEwen, Elliott, Torrence, and… that’s about it. The Golden Eagles have now reached out to any and all transfer guards, including Ohio State’s DJ Carton, UNLV’s Amauri Hardy and Jonah Antonio, Bowling Green’s Justin Turner, Wichita State’s Jamarius Burton, Pittsburgh’s Ryan Murphy, Binghamton’s Sam Sessoms, Gardner-Webb’s Nate Johnson, Louisville’s Darius Perry, and Harvard’s Bryce Aiken, among others. Most of the players on that list are grad transfers, though with the transfer rules potentially changing to allow all college athletes to transfer without penalty, perhaps all these names will be eligible immediately this fall.
Marquette’s selling point to these transfers is obvious as the Golden Eagles are losing two guards who averaged over 33 mpg, including one of the highest usage players in college basketball history. Expect Marquette to heavily pursue Carton (he had Marquette in his final six coming out of high school), Turner (averaged nearly 18 ppg on 37 percent three-point shooting over his past three years), and Hardy (a Detroit native, an area which Wojo has recruited well in the past).
Marquette is battling with many of the usual suspects for backcourt help, including Michigan State and Seton Hall, two programs that are similarly looking to replace their four-year superstar guards.
The big fish still looming is five-star recruit Karim Mane, who is listed as the 25th-best prospect in the nation, according to 247sports. Mane visited Marquette in early January for the home win over Villanova. He has only visited one other school – Maryland in May 2019 – but is still weighing offers from a handful of other teams as well. Marquette appears to be the current favorite to land Mane, a 6-foot-4 guard from Montreal, but his decision plans may have changed with campuses closed due to COVID-19.
Adding Mane to Wojo’s current crop of commits would likely make Marquette’s incoming class the best in program history. MU’s class already ranks 14th in the nation, highlighted by McDonald’s All-American Dawson Garcia and supplemented with four-star forwards Justin Lewis and Oso Ighodaro. Even with Mane in the mix, Marquette would still have a couple scholarships remaining to use for transfers. The Golden Eagles will also be adding wing Dexter Akanno following his 2019-20 redshirt season.