ESPN Has A New Top 60 For The Basketball Recruiting Class Of 2018

I would imagine, with the early signing period just slightly more than two months away, ESPN’s first focus after the summer basketball calendar was to update their Class of 2017 rankings. They’ve done that, and things are..... okay for Marquette when it comes to the next recruiting class in the eyes of the World Wide Leader.

The class after that, though.... wow.

Here’s ESPN’s brand new hot off the presses top 60 recruits for the Class of 2018. I count no fewer than THIRTEEN (!) guys in the top 60 - more than 21% of them! - that Marquette head coach Steve Wojciechowski and his staff have some sort of involvement in already.

It doesn’t start at the very tippy top, where Marvin Bagley III and Romeo Langford are 1-2. It does start prrrrreeeeettttty close to them, though. Here we go, deep breath.....

• Simi Shittu, #8
• Immanuel Quickley, #11
• Tyler Herro, #25
• Jalen Smith, #27
• Quentin Grimes, #29
• Ayo Dosunmu, #33
• Joey Hauser, #36
• Matthew Mayer, #42
• Kiyon Boyd, #45
• Jaedon LeDee, #50
• Prentiss Hubb, #53
• Tim Finke, #55
• T.J. Moss, #59

PHEW, that is a lot of dudes. It’s really a whole ton of dudes when you consider the fact that, presuming Wojo uses all of his available scholarships for 2017, Marquette only has two open spots for 2018. Andrew Rowsey, Sandy Cohen, and Duane Wilson will all be departing after the 2017-18 season, and Brendan Bailey is expected to arrive on campus for the 2018-19 season after completing his Mormon mission. Bailey takes up one of those three spots, leaving just two more.

Of course, we’re almost exactly two years away from the first day of classes for this crop of recruits, and as we’re all aware, a whole hell of a lot can happen between now and then. With that in mind, it’s probably a really good thing that Wojo and company are launching out interest far and wide right now.

The two names that probably jumped off the screen at you are Tyler Herro and Joey Hauser. Herro is a 6’4”, 180 lb. point guard that just went on an unofficial visit to Marquette the other day. His number of unofficial visits to MU may go slightly under reported because Herro attends Whitnall High School in Greenfield, a suburb of Milwaukee. Wojciechowski has already been to see him play for Whitnall a number of times, so it’s clear that reeling in a top recruit that’s 1) in Wisconsin and 2) right in Marquette’s back yard is a high priority.

Hauser also has to be near the top of the list for Marquette’s coaching staff, and not just because he’s also from Wisconsin. Joey is the younger brother of current Marquette freshman Sam Hauser, but much like the Ellenson brothers, the older one is the smaller one, or at least that used to be the case. ESPN lists Joey at 6’7” and 210 lb., while Sam was 6’6”, 210 lb. when he signed with Marquette last November. Sam’s official listing on the roster right now is 6’7”, 225 lb., so we’ll see exactly what Joey’s upper limit is since he’s only starting his junior year of high school this fall.

The name that interests me the most is Immanuel Quickley. He was on the Team USA squad with Markus Howard that won a gold medal in this summer’s FIBA U17 World Championship. Being on the same USA Basketball youth team isn’t a lock for Marquette to make it deep into the process with Quickley, as their teammate Carte`Are Gordon (#9 on ESPN’s list) recently cut his list to 11 schools and did not include Marquette after getting a scholarship offer in June. If Marquette gets on a roll this season with Howard on the team, and if Howard has a strong relationship with Quickley.... well, it’ll be interesting, and we’ll leave it at that.

Believe it or not, there are seven players in the class of 2018 who have already made a verbal commitment to a school. North Carolina has two, Ohio State has two, and Iowa, Washington, and Arkansas all have one each. The Washington one is slightly misleading, though. It’s Jontay Porter, and yes, that’s Class of 2017 star Michael Porter, Jr.’s little brother, and yes, Michael Porter, Sr., was recently hired as an assistant coach at Washington.

You can check out ESPN’s full top 60 right here.