Jonas Aidoo Puts Marquette Men’s Basketball In His Top 10

On Saturday morning, we got to talk about a new scholarship offer from Marquette men’s basketball for a big man in the class of 2021. Now we’re going to talk about a different big man in the Class of 2021, one that Marquette is already hip deep in recruiting. On Saturday afternoon, Jonas Aidoo announced his top 10 schools, and yes, of course, the Golden Eagles are in his top 10. They are joined there by Georgia, Houston, Kansas, Miami, North Carolina State, Providence, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wake Forest.

Aidoo is listed by 247 Sports as a 6’11”, 215 pound center, although I have to point out that Aidoo calls himself a 7-footer in his Twitter bio. He’s currently rated as a four-star prospect in the 247 Composite and ranked #120 in the country. That makes him the #20 center in the Class of 2021 and the #4 prospect coming out of North Carolina. While Aidoo is the #20 center in the class, he’s the 6th best uncommitted center prospect at this point in the recruiting cycle. He’s the top uncommitted prospect in North Carolina, with the top two guys headed to UNC and the #3 guy committed to NC State.

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind recruiting trip for Marquette and Aidoo, as his scholarship offer from MU head coach Steve Wojciechowski only came through in early August of this year. At the time, Aidoo was completely unrated and unranked. He turned up in the 247 Composite at #208 in late August and jumped up twice, first to #160 and then to his current spot at #120, since then. Five of the nine Major Seven conference offers that Aidoo had at the time had come since July 31st, just days before Marquette’s offer was announced by the big man. We have to tip our cap to Aidoo for being able to settle things down in this tumult and figure out what his best options and/or personal preferences were.

We haven’t gotten around to high school basketball season again yet, so all we have for info about stats and such from Aidoo is what was had in August. Here’s what we said then:

It looks like Aidoo will be at Liberty Heights for the first time this fall. Max Preps has him at Voyager Academy in Durham, NC, last year. They show the team going 22-7 with a 14-2 record in conference play, but they only have six games worth of stats for Aidoo. That’s a bummer. He averaged 11.3 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 3.0 blocks in those games, so that’s pretty good. It’s also worth noting that Max Preps says that Aidoo was a senior at Voyager last school year, so this coming year at Liberty Heights is apparently a post-grad/college prep year for him. That probably helps explain why he isn’t rated or ranked in the Class of 2021 at this point, as there’s a certain amount of reclassification going on there. Of course, that raises a question of why Aidoo wasn’t being recruited as a 2020 prospect relative to his status as “under the radar” as opposed to “project.”

Here’s 2:30 worth of highlights that was published in early June of this year:

Let’s go to the scholarship chart, shall we?

Marquette’s biggest need for the Class of 2021 is a big man with Kameron Jones and Stevie Mitchell already on board. Theo John is projected to wrap up his eligibility in the 2020-21 season, and as such, the Golden Eagles desperately need someone who can be that rim protector presence. At 215 pounds, Aidoo is a long way from being the physical presence that John is and has been for MU, but from the highlight clip, he looks like he’s a lot more mobile than John, especially with the basketball in his hand. I don’t know if that’s a tradeoff that you particularly like in your defensive anchor, but we’ll have to wait and see what Dawson Garcia and Justin Lewis are able to give Marquette as freshmen before we worry too much about it.