Ye Olde Marquette Basketball Transfer & Recruiting Update: April 16, 2018

The transfer news wheel continues to turn, so let’s kick off a brand new Monday with a brief refresher on what the Marquette staff has been up to over the last 10 days or so.

First up, a look at some new names that have popped into the equation.

Dachon Burke, Robert Morris

Burke was a minor player for RMU as a freshman before blossoming into a major contributor as a sophomore. His raw stats are impressive: 17.6 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 2.5 assists per game.

I’m not 100% convinced that Burke is a perfect fit for what Marquette is looking for in a transfer. He is a tall (6’4”) guard, so that’s good news. He had a good assist rate as a sophomore for the Colonials (ranked just inside the top 500 on KenPom), but not outstanding. Burke also isn’t a particularly reliable shooter, connecting on 34% of his 130 long range attempts this past season. Also a warning sign? That 63% from the free throw line.

Even with the quality assist rate, it doesn’t look like he was the primary point guard for RMU this season, as he played the exact same quantity of minutes as Matty McConnell and Jon Williams. McConnell had a good assist rate (outside the top 500) and Williams was better than Burke. If this is head coach Steve Wojciechowski doing due diligence on available guys, so be it, but I don’t like the idea of trying to hammer this square peg into the round point guard hole that MU has, even if he does sit out a season anyway.

Prentiss Nixon, Colorado State

Nixon’s ability score seems unquestioned after averaging 13.2 and 16.1 points the past two seasons. However, after shooting 39% from three on limited attempts as a freshman, he’s posted marks of 32% and 33% the past two seasons. Admittedly, CSU was a bad team this past year, and the Rams were bad shooting teams in both campaigns. Doesn’t really excuse it.

The 6’2” Nixon doesn’t have the assist rate numbers that you’d like to see from a player that MU is considering bringing in to play point guard minutes, but he does have a few things working for him. He minimizes turnovers, ranking in KenPom’s top 500 for lowest turnover rate in the country. He also turned himself into a ballhawk as a junior, ranking in the top 250 in steals rate, and he drew five fouls per 40 minutes, too. If he can defend and not turn it over, maybe merely being surrounded by Markus Howard and Sam Hauser would make him a better shooter. Nixon would sit out 2018-19 and only have the 2019-20 season left in terms of eligibility.

Justin Coleman, graduate transfer, Samford

The 5’10” Coleman is looking for a third home to finish up his collegiate career after playing for two years at Alabama and one at Samford following a transfer redshirt campaign. Other than his height, his shooting is a red flag. He shot 26% on 256 attempts from long range at Alabama. Yes, he cranked it up to 37% in his one year at Samford. That’s also with 19 games of SoCon action.

Other than that, he seems to check the boxes. Outstanding assist rates, including ranking #11 in the country this past season, excellent at not fouling, great from the free throw line, steal rates that are within spitting distance of being excellent.

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We move on to updates about transfers that we’ve already identified as Marquette targets.

Utah State’s Koby McEwen has trimmed his list to just three schools: Creighton, Marquette, and Grand Canyon. In addition to that, McEwen was scheduled to host Marquette at his home this past weekend.

This is either McEwen’s second visit from Marquette or a follow-up visit after he visited Milwaukee. I’m seeing tweets indicating both things happened last week, and it seems like that can’t be the case. Either way, Wojo and his staff are dialed in on McEwen, who is a traditional transfer and will have to sit out the 2018-19 campaign no matter where he goes. You can read more about our assessment of how he could fit in at Marquette in our original article about him.

Next, Fordham’s Joseph Chartouny will be visiting Marquette on Tuesday.

We talked about Chartouny in our last recruiting/transfer update. He seems to be the perfect fit for what Marquette needs to get the most out of their 2018-19 season. I don’t know how fast the Canadian guard is looking to make a decision, but I would imagine that we could know his choice by May 1st.

Finally, Marquette is out on Joe Cremo from Albany. Or perhaps Cremo is out on Marquette. Either way, he has a five team list and the Golden Eagles aren’t on it.

Oh well. He seems like he’ll make a major impact no matter where he lands. Go not-Creighton.

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I do want to toss in two high school recruiting notes here, one of which might not really affect Marquette all that much.

Class of 2019 guard Tyrese Maxey picked up an offer from Marquette last August, but at the time, I didn’t think a whole lot about it. Not because August 2019 was two years away, no, my dismissive thoughts were centered around the fact that SMU had hired Maxey’s father as an assistant coach at roughly the same time.

Well, that’s changed now, as the elder Maxey is no longer part of Tim Jankovich’s staff.

I have no idea how open Marquette has kept the lines of communication with Maxey over the past eight months, but it’s not going to cost Wojo anything to make a phone call to a top 15 prospect that already holds a scholarship offer. With that said, Monday morning brought along this article from Evan Daniels over at 247 Sports on Maxey’s current recruiting situation, and there’s nary a mention of Marquette.

While Maxey might be off the table for the Golden Eagles, Wojo has irons in the fire elsewhere in the Dallas area, as he’ll be in Rockwall to visit Samuell Williamson on Monday.

We’ll have to qualify Williamson as a fast riser as Rivals clearly has him in their top 50. However, 247 Sports has him at #107 in the country in their Composite ranking. Obviously, there’s a bit of that Rivals score in there, as 247’s internal setup has Williamson as #211.

In any case, if you want to see Marquette recruiting tall guards, then Williamson’s your guy at 6’6”. 247 says that he’s the 8th best player in all of Texas, trailing behind familiar Marquette recruiting names Will Baker and Jalen Wilson amongst others.