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On Wednesday, James Bishop trimmed his recruiting list to six schools: Colorado, LSU, St. John’s, Seton Hall, VCU, and YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles. Things got more interesting on Thursday morning when a list of four official visits for Bishop became public. In order: LSU on September 8, St. John’s on September 15, VCU on September 22, and Marquette on October 5.
S/O to all the coaches that have recruited and blessed me with the opportunity to play at the next level . Special thanks to my loved ones without you guys i wouldn’t be here..with that being said here is my FINAL 6 , this one for the city !!! #410 #DOUBLEDOWN pic.twitter.com/hEcfwEKD8Y
— Church ' (@RealJB10) August 8, 2018
‘19 guard James Bishop (@RealJB10) of @TeamThrillUAA & @MSJ_Basketball has four official visit set, per a source. @ElevateHoops
— Julius Kim (@JKimElevate) August 9, 2018
LSU 9/8 weekend
St. John’s 9/15 weekend
VCU 9/22 weekend
Marquette 10/5 weekend
Seems like a bit of a bummer for Seton Hall and Colorado there, or at least one of them for sure.
247 Sports lists Bishop as a 6’2”, 170 pound combo guard hailing from Baltimore, Maryland. He’s marked as a three-star prospect in their Composite system, where he ranks #172 in the country. That’s actually a bit of a drop since Marquette offered him a scholarship back in late January, as he was ranked #143 and rated as a four-star prospect at the time. I can’t say what exactly caused the dropoff as that’s the whole point of a composite ranking, but I can say that 247’s internal system only has him ranked at #186.
For now, at least, it seems that the recruiting priorities are Bishop and Seth Lundy, who included the Golden Eagles in a top 10 list on Thursday. Obviously, if Marquette is spending an official visit on Bishop (yes, schools are limited in how many recruits they can pay to visit campus just like prospects are limited in how many visits they can take), then he’s going to even take precedent over Lundy, at least for now.
If you’re starting to get your knickers in a bunch about “RASSUM FRASSUM WOJO CAN’T RECRUIT WHY ARE WE MESSING WITH SOMEONE OUTSIDE THE TOP 150,” well, first of all, Greg Elliott says hi, and second of all, the fact of the matter is that Marquette doesn’t need an impact freshman for the fall of 2019.
Here’s the scholarship chart as it looks right now.
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Take a peek at 2019-20. Compare it to 2018-19. Not a lot of change there, huh? As a result, not a lot of minutes really popping free for freshmen, huh? And that’s fine, by the way. Unless you’re Kentucky or Duke, you don’t want to be relying on having freshmen come in and dominate the stat sheet as has happened in three of Steve Wojciechowski’s four seasons at Marquette. If Wojo and his staff add a guy who can get a chance to develop a bit before taking on a more important role in 2020-21, that’s A-OK by me.
It’s worth pointing out that the weekend of October 5th is Marquette’s homecoming weekend, with Marquette Madness scheduled for a 9pm start time on the 5th itself, and there’s an open practice scheduled for the next day as well. That’s a pretty strong move by Wojo to make sure that Bishop is on campus for a weekend that will definitely be filled with enthusiasm for the upcoming hoops season. The catch, of course, is that the MU staff has to keep their fingers crossed that Bishop doesn’t get wowed by [checks schedule] LSU’s football home opener against Southeastern Louisiana.