Nebraska Transfer Ed Morrow Will Visit Marquette

On Wednesday, ESPN’s Jeff Goodman reported that Nebraska transfer Ed Morrow will visit Marquette on April 23rd and 24th.

Morrow is a 6’7”, 234 lb., forward who mostly played as an undersized center for Tim Miles at Nebraska. He will have to sit out the 2017-18 season, but will then have two seasons of eligibility remaining.

He averaged 4.1 points and 3.3 rebounds as a freshman, and then 9.4 points and 7.5 rebounds as a sophomore. Both seasons were limited by injuries to the same foot, including a stress reaction that caused him to miss seven games this past season. Even at just 6’7”, Morrow was an incredible rebounder in his sophomore season, ranking #29 in the country in offensive rebounding rate according to KenPom, and his defensive rebounding rate (#196) is no joke, either. He was also top 200 in block rate, which is pretty impressive for a guy of his height.

At a glance, it would seem that the pursuit of Morrow by the Marquette coaching staff is an insurance policy on the MU recruiting class of 2017. Morrow is a known quantity, whereas it’s hard to know for sure what the freshmen will turn into. However, if he picks Marquette, he will have to sit out for a year while the freshmen get a chance to earn a spot in the rotation.

While the insurance policy angle makes sense, adding Morrow to the roster could put a bit of a crimp in Marquette’s 2018 recruiting. Here’s what the scholarship situation looks like right now:

As you can see, adding Morrow would occupy one scholarship in each of the next three school years. That would leave Marquette with just one projected scholarship available for a freshman in the fall of 2018. That’s not a bad thing, mind you, particularly if everyone on the 2017-18 roster turns into a contributor. However, as we discussed yesterday, Steve Wojciechowski and his staff have a lot of 2018 irons in the fire right now, and we’ll have to see how much further the recruitment of those guys goes with just one spot left.