On back to back August days, we received word that Marquette men’s basketball would be hosting two Class of 2020 prospects for official visits in September. Let’s go in chronological order of the upcoming visits to talk about each one.

AJ Hoggard

Colby Giacubeno of PrepHoops.com got a chance to talk to AJ Hoggard recently, and thus we know that he’ll be taking an official visit to Marquette starting on September 17th. Hoggard is a 6’3”, 185 pound point guard according to his 247 Sports page. Their Composite system says that he is the #63 player in the country, the #10 point guard, and the #2 player in his native state of Pennsylvania. While he’s from the extended Philadelphia area and nearly literally in Villanova’s backyard, Hoggard attends Huntington Prep in West Virginia.

Marquette offered Hoggard a scholarship back in late April of this year. Hoggard is one of three Huntington Prep players that currently hold a scholarship offer from Marquette along with Dudley Blackwell and Zach Loveday. I can’t tell you if that makes Hoggard more or less likely to attend Marquette, but it certainly means Huntington Prep is going to be high on the places for the MU coaching staff to visit as the Class of 2020 cycle continues forward.

Hoggard has more visits scheduled than just his trip to Milwaukee. Before winding his way to Wisconsin, Hoggard will visit Providence at the end of August, followed by Ole Miss on September 6th. Four days before he’ll be at Marquette, Hoggard will visit Michigan State, and then four days after that, he’ll be in Gainesville to visit Florida. He only gets five official visits to use during his senior year, and that’s all five of them. It’s safe to say that that is Hoggard’s top five at this point, but nothing is truly final until he actually spends all of the visits.

RJ Davis

As you can see from the tweet, Andrew Slater is happy to report that RJ Davis will be visiting Marquette starting on September 27th, 10 days after Hoggard. Davis is a 5’11”, 165 pound combo guard out of White Plains, New York, where he attends Archbishop Stepinac High School.

If you’ve ever wanted evidence of Steve Wojciechowski’s recruiting sense, go ahead and look at Davis. When Marquette and Wojciechowski offered him a scholarship back in late May of this year, Davis was ranked #204 in the 247 Sports Composite system. Today, as we talk about his official visit? He’s up to #84. That also has him as the #8 combo guard in the country and the #3 player in the entire state of New York.

As is the case with Hoggard, Davis also has other visits set and scheduled to go on top of a summertime visit to Georgetown already in the books. Davis will visit Pitt before coming to Marquette, and then follow up MU with a jaunt to Chapel Hill to visit North Carolina. With Jeff Capel running the show at Pitt, both the Panthers and UNC will provide heavy competition for Marquette in terms of drawing Davis’ attention. Then again, the performance of another 5’11” guard in blue and gold will do the same thing going in the other direction.

The Class of 2020 was already going to be an important class for Wojciechowski in terms of restocking the roster after the departures of Markus Howard, Sacar Anim, and Ed Morrow. Then Joey Hauser transferred and Ike Eke was declared medically ineligible to play.

Now, even with Justin Lewis on board for 2020 already, Marquette appears to have five — count ‘em, five — more open scholarships for next fall. In short, while it appears that Hoggard and Davis might occupy similar places within a roster, the Golden Eagles find themselves in need of impact players, no matter the position. There’s space for both of these young men in the fall of 2020, or perhaps several other young men instead. It’s up to Wojciechowski and his staff to figure out how to get all the pieces aligned in a way that results in wins in 2020-21 and beyond.

Here’s what the scholarship situation looks like right now.