There’s Suddenly A Whole Mess Of Marquette Basketball Recruiting News

Sometimes you create an article with the intent to write, and then you get pulled away, and by the time you get back to it, the whole point of genesis on the thing has changed. That’s what happened here, as I had intended this article to be about the confirmation that Marquette men’s basketball was after one particular grad transfer. However, by the time I had actually gotten around to typing on it, we had notes on four more players. Could they turn into four other separate articles? Sure, but I care about you guys, and want to make this as easy to consume as possible.

FIRST UP:

After dancing around the issue, we have two notes of confirmation that Marquette is in fact pursuing Fordham graduate transfer Joseph Chartouny, one from a chap by the name of Peter Yannopoulos and one from noted ESPN news wizard Jeff Goodman.

If you’re wondering “hey, who is this Yannopoulos dude,” well, that’s slightly fair as I’ve never heard of him before, but his Twitter bio marks him as a Canadian, and Chartouny is from Quebec. Plus, if Goodman himself is following him....

Anyway, the point is that we can now talk about Marquette’s pursuit of Chartouny openly. I had originally seen a mention of “a Big East” team being after him, and that’s not helpful. When it was pointed out that both head coach Steve Wojciechowski and associate head coach Brett Nelson were following Chartouny on Twitter, well, that’s more helpful, but I will be damned if I’m going to spend time blogging about who people are following on Twitter.

Chartouny was the first name to pop up in the transfer cycle that fit the picture of what Marquette needs for the 2018-19 season: A tall guard with quality passing skills who can be relied on to play perimeter defense. Chartouny lists at 6’3” and 205 pounds. His career averages for the Rams, where he’s been a three year starter: 11.9 points, 5.0 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 2.9 steals. His advanced metrics profile: Finished #1 in the country in steal rate in 2016-17 and #2 in 2017-18, and has been top 100 in assist rate in all three seasons with Fordham. In fact, 2017-18 was his worst season, ranking just #93 in the country in assist rate.

The only real knock on Chartouny is that he’s a career 33% shooter from behind the three-point line. Hopefully, when surrounded by guys like Markus Howard and Sam Hauser, he would shoot more like his 38% from 2016-17 than like the 28% he posted this season.

As you can imagine, any program in the country in need of a point guard is going to be interested in Chartouny, so it’s a bit of a long shot that he ends up in Milwaukee.

Keeping things grad transfer and Goodman related, we know that things are a little closer than “interested” when it comes to Albany Great Danes ’s Joe Cremo. Goodman has a list of coaches that are going to be making the trip to New York to talk to Cremo, and weirdly, all of them have a Marquette connection, even if it’s just in passing.

You’ve got one current Big East coach (other than Wojo), a former Big East coach, the subject of the weirdest internet rumor day in Marquette history, and the guy who coached against Marquette in the NIT quarterfinals this year. Okay, so that last one is stretching it for a “connection.” Who’s telling this story?

Anyway, for more on Cremo, check out our article from when MU was originally connected to him.

Speaking of Albany, I suppose we should talk about David Nichols. When Marquette was originally connected to the Great Danes guard, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was just an issue of crossed wires in regards to Cremo. I mean, look at the list in this tweet.

That’s a lot of teams. But Nichols is from the Chicago area, so of course a Chicago-area source would know what his deal is. We have a secondary confirmation from Keegan Pope, who works for the Missouri section of Rivals.

Nichols has had a great two year run for the Danes, averaging at least 14 points, three rebounds, three assists, and a steal in each of the past two seasons. He can knock down shots from outside, too, compiling a career mark of 36% from long range. Nichols also has a sterling assist rate (over 20% & ranked in the top 425 the last two years) , which is pretty impressive, given that he’s been playing with Cremo. The only real knock on Nichols is that he’s only listed at six feet tall, and if you’re going to give me options on guys to partner with Markus Howard for one season, I’d prefer a guy who is a little taller than that.

That does it for the graduate transfer section of our rundown, and we move on to the class of 2019. With the NCAA season over, it’s about time for the spring evaluation period, and that means that the Marquette staff can go visit players, too. Wojo is going to be out and about this weekend, it seems, as Rivals’ Corey Evans has him visiting both Mark “Rocket” Watts and D.J. Carton on Sunday, April 8.

Watts, who hails from Michigan, is currently ranked #57 by 247 Sports’ Composite system. He also plays for the same grassroots squad as current Golden Eagles Jamal Cain, Ike Eke, and Greg Elliott, so there’s a certain amount of familiarity there for both sides. Listed at 6’2” and a shooting guard by 247, Watts has shown a surge in both popularity and size since Marquette offered him a scholarship in late April of 2017. He was listed as six feet tall then and ranked #143 by that same Composite system that now has him angling towards the top 50 in the country.

Carton has exploded since MU offered him a scholarship in June of last year. He wasn’t even ranked at all in either 247’s Composite or internal systems, and now he’s top 50 in both, coming in at #48 and #38 respectively. Marquette was one of the first major programs to offer the Iowa native a scholarship, so we’ll have to wait and see if being first on the scene ends up benefiting the Golden Eagles.