Top 40 Prospect D.J. Carton Includes Marquette In His Final Six

Hey, who doesn’t like late night recruiting news? We were gifted a little bit of that on Thursday when Class of 2019 point guard D.J. Carton cut his recruiting list down to six schools via a tweet at a little past 9pm Central time. Of course, since we’re talking about it here, YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles are one of the six squads, along with Ohio State, Michigan, Indiana, Xavier, and Carton’s home state Iowa Hawkeyes.

Y’know, my first instinct/gut reaction on the photoshopped image in Carton’s tweet was “this is kinda goofy as hell,” but then I had a realization. Wouldn’t it be neat if he ends up eliminating one school at a time, and one of the teams next to the eliminated one takes up the spot? For example: Carton announces in 6 weeks or something that Xavier is out, so then Indiana takes up the entire bottom of the shorts, and so on and so forth. That would be kind of fun.

247 Sports lists Carton as a 6’1”, 180 pound point guard out of Bettendorf, Iowa. After being completely unranked when Marquette offered him a scholarship last June, Carton is now ranked #33 in the country by 247’s Composite system. That has him as a four star prospect and the #4 point guard in the country in his class behind Kentucky commits Ashton Hagans and Tyrese Maxey as well as Josiah James out of South Carolina. Believe it or not, there is something of a contest for the best player in Iowa, as Carton is just barely edging out #37 Pat McCaffery, but McCaffery is already committed to play for his father at Iowa.

Here’s a nearly five minute long highlight clip of Carton, although it is from last August.

Carton is the second top 40 prospect in the class of 2019 to include the Golden Eagles in his cutdown, with Carton’s announcement coming somewhat hot on the heels of Jalen Wilson’s announcement. With Kansas, Michigan, and UCLA going after Wilson, and Ohio State, Michigan, Xavier, and Indiana making the cut for Carton, Marquette head coach Steve Wojciechowski and his staff are going to have their work cut out for them to get either one of these two to agree to put on the blue and gold. The odds are highly against MU ending up with both guys, but conversely, it would be one hell of a recruiting accomplishment if the Golden Eagles do in fact end up with both. It’s not impossible, as Carton is a point guard and Wilson is listed as a small forward.

For now, though, we wait for announcements of official visits. Recruits are allowed five paid trips to campuses, and with six teams in Carton’s final group, at least one is getting left out.

Marquette projects to have two open scholarship spots in the fall of 2019. Here’s what the scholarship situation looks like right now.