Brendan Bailey Is Officially On Marquette’s Campus

Thanks to the official Marquette men’s basketball Twitter, we now know that the next stage in the Brendan Bailey plan has come to fruition. The Utah native is now officially on campus at Marquette and presumably will begin summer school sessions on Monday.

If you’ve been following Marquette hoops for a while now, then you’re probably familiar with Brendan Bailey. If you’re not, though, let’s recap a bit, shall we?

As far as I can tell, the first mention of Brendan Bailey on this website was this mention of a visit to campus back in August of 2015. Bailey would trim his recruiting list to five a little over a week later, and shortly before the 2015 fall signing period, Bailey made his verbal commitment to play for Marquette.

You’ll notice I keep saying 2015 in that paragraph, and no, that’s not a typo. Bailey signed his national letter of intent to play for Marquette in the fall of 2015. To give you an idea of the time frame on this, Bailey signed his letter two days before Henry Ellenson played his first game for the Golden Eagles. It’s been that long.

The reason for the delay between the signing and Bailey’s arrival on campus is quite easily explained. He has spent the last two years on a Mormon mission, a common occurrence for people of his age in the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints. He managed to make a little bit of news back in Utah when a staffer for Utah Senator Orrin Hatch randomly happened to notice Bailey offering some monetary assistance to a man in Washington, D.C., where Bailey was stationed for his mission.

Bailey, the son of 12 year NBA veteran Thurl Bailey, was listed as a 6’7”, 170 pound small forward by 247 Sports when they wrapped up coverage of the class of 2016. While a two-year Mormon mission is not designed to be physically beneficial to a high level athlete, the official roster page for Marquette lists Bailey at 6’8” and 190 pounds. It also says he’ll be wearing #1.

Bailey was ranked #92 in the country by 247 Sports’ Composite system back in the day, slotting him as #3 in the list of MU’s three 2016 signees. Things have gone pretty well over the past two years for the other two guys, whom you know as Markus Howard (ranked #68) and Sam Hauser (#83). While those two will be juniors when the 2018 season starts, Bailey will be a freshman with four years of eligibility remaining.