Fordham Graduate Transfer Joseph Chartouny Chooses Marquette

Everyone knew that Marquette wanted a new point guard on the roster for the 2018-19 season. It was obvious from the full court press that head coach Steve Wojciechowski and his staff put on five star prep star Quentin Grimes. That ended with MU coming up empty, which meant it was time to turn attentions to graduate transfers.

That, of course, is a bit of a crapshoot, as it’s dependent on quality players 1) graduating and 2) willing to move on. Thankfully for Marquette fans, associate head coach Brett Nelson is on the job. That brings us to Friday afternoon’s news from ESPN’s Jeff Goodman: Fordham graduate transfer Joseph Chartouny will be joining Marquette this coming fall. He can play immediately, and have one year of eligibility remaining.

Chartouny, who was listed at 6’3” and 205 pounds last season, has been a starter from day one for Fordham head coach Jeff Neubauer, averaging 11.9 points, 5.0 rebounds, 5.2 assists, and 2.9 steals per game in 84 career games.

It’s those assist and steals numbers that are what undoubtedly drew Wojo’s interest. When you take Fordham’s sub-250 ranked tempo in each of Chartouny’s three seasons into account, he has shown to be one of the best passers and best thieves in the country, and perhaps the best combination of the pair of talents. Chartouny’s national rank in assist rate according to KenPom: #21, #44, #93. His ranks in steal rate: #32, #1, #2.

So to review: A guard that’s well over six feet tall, distributes like woah, especially for a guy on teams that struggled on offense, and is so good of a defender that he forces turnovers all over the building. Yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what MU needed to add to next year’s roster.

With that said, the addition of Chartouny to the roster firmly pushes Wojo into “let’s see what you’ve got, m’man” territory for 2018-19. It will be his most experienced roster in terms of both merely years of playing college basketball and in terms of number of years with the program for all of the players. Chartouny will be the 12th scholarship player on the roster, and just the second one, along with 2016 signee Brendan Bailey, to have not been with the Golden Eagles during the 2017-18 season. When you include Chartouny along with Nebraska transfer Ed Morrow and redshirt freshman Joey Hauser to last year’s roster that only lost Andrew Rowsey, 2018-19 will also be Wojo’s most talented lineup from top to bottom since taking over from Buzz Williams.

Does any of that guarantee any particular number of wins, whether it’s overall, in Big East play, or in the post season? Nope. It absolutely does not. It does, however, eradicate any explanations or, if you prefer, excuses as to why Marquette is not successful. The results next year are going to rest solely with the coaching staff. Wojo has his players, and he’s had most of them in the program for a year or two or three now. Time to stack up W’s.

As mentioned earlier, Chartouny is the 12th scholarship player on the team for next season, and with the NCAA’s limit set at 13, Marquette still has one spot available. It would seem that the most likely candidates for that spot are both transfers: Utah State’s Koby McEwen and Pittsburgh’s Marcus Carr. Both are traditional transfers, so they would have to sit out the 2018-19 season.

Here’s how the scholarship chart looks right now.