Rose Nkumu Commits To Marquette Women’s Basketball

As is seemingly usually the case, catching Marquette omen’s basketball recruiting news is running a little bit behind the curve. The discussion about why there’s less attention for girls’ basketball news coverage/women’s basketball recruiting coverage is a very long discussion and one we won’t get into at this point.

Instead, we’ll talk about the fact that Class of 2020 prospect Rose Nkumu committed to play for Marquette and head coach Megan Duffy way back on June 7th.

Nkumu is the first commitment (as far as I know) for Duffy since she became Marquette’s head coach back on April 10th. Less than two months in is a pretty fast move for recruiting, so that’s impressive enough. Nkumu’s offer came through in late April, so it’s really only been about six weeks of communication between her and the coaching staff. While that sounds really quick, it’s important to remember that Duffy comes to Marquette from Miami (OH), and she had offered Nkumu a scholarship back in August of 2018. Duffy’s move to Marquette meant that Nkumu went from the MAC to the Big East, and shoutout to Duffy for sticking by her.

Nkumu averaged 19 points, 5.4 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and 3.7 steals per game as a junior at Iowa City High School. She’s been a starter since Day One for ICHS, and that’s a team that has produced three high major prospects in classmate Aubrey Joens and her two older sisters in recent years. Iowa City has three seniors in Nkumu, Joens, and Paige Rocca that should guide them back to the state tournament again, and with a little luck, back to the title game that they reached in 2018.

At 5’8” and with a stat line like she had as a junior, Nkumu is a guard for sure, and most likely slots in as a point guard. Jeff Linder of the Cedar Rapids Gazette referred to Nkumu as “one of the best open-court defenders in the state” in his article on her commitment, which does line up with her 3.7 steals per game. Duffy has talked about playing a similar high octane style to the one that Carolyn Kieger employed before her, and having a ballhawk in the backcourt will go a long way towards creating fast break points.

We’re still waiting for a little bit of clarity on the scholarship situation for Marquette going forward, but we know that Duffy will have two scholarships available in the fall of 2020 with the departures of Isabelle Spingola and Altia Anderson. Nkumu takes up one of those two for sure. There are currently three spots sitting open for 2019-20 that could end up still available next summer, but Duffy did tell the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Ben Steele that she was hoping to add to the 2019-20 roster. That hasn’t happened yet, as far as I know, and that may or may not end up shifting what Duffy and her staff need to do for the fall of 2020.

Here’s what the scholarship situation looks like now that Nkumu is on board.