It’s signing day!

Well, okay, it’s not signing day, since it’s the fall signing period from now until November 18th. What that mean is that all of Marquette Golden Eagles’s committed basketball recruits for the Class of 2021 can turn in their national letters of intent to the MU athletic department, thus formalizing the verbal pledge that they had already made and allowing the coaches to start talking about the new recruits publicly. That’s how it works for basketball, but for all of MU’s other sports, this just opens up the floodgate as the national signing period runs from now through the end of July 2021.

In short, what this means for this here internet website is that we know we’re going to get official notice of two men’s basketball and two women’s basketball signings either today or very soon in the next few days. As far as the other sports that MU sponsors, well, it’s up in the air as to when the teams will announce anything, and since we’re not tracking recruiting for those sports as closely, we don’t really know what to expect. We’ll take it as it comes if there’s something noteworthy to discuss.

Let’s wind it back to basketball. Let’s do a quick rundown on the four young people who we expect to hear from soon. We’ll start with women’s basketball, as Megan Duffy and her staff have the more nationally acclaimed recruiting class right now.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Kendra Gillispie

And we start our rundown with MU’s most recent commitment. Kendra Gillispie made her pledge to Megan Duffy and the Golden Eagles a little over a month ago. The 6’2” native of Oklahoma is currently ranked #58 in the country by ESPN and #54 in the country by Blue Star, both of which are the same ranking that she had a month ago when she committed. It would appear that Gillispie ended up with the Golden Eagles due to new assistant coach Tony Greene moving on from Ole Miss, as she withdrew her commitment to the Rebels shortly after Greene was no longer a part of the coaching staff there. A few months after Greene joined Duffy’s staff, they made an official offer to Gillispie, and the relationship blossomed into a commitment three months after that.

Gillispie may be an interesting addition to the Golden Eagles roster. ESPN says that she’s a wing, and in fact the 10th best wing in the recruiting class. However, Blue Star notes her as a center. Now, I can’t tell you how often that Blue Star digs in and updates the player positions on recruits, so it’s up to you to figure out what all of this means for both Gillispie and the MU roster. Still, if Gillispie is effective in the post and can move with the ball well, then I suspect everything will end up working out okay.

Makiyah Williams

The 6’0” forward out of the Chicago area made her commitment to Marquette back in April of 2020. She was one of the first prospects that head coach Megan Duffy extended an offer to back when she was hired in the spring of 2019. Blue Star currently shows Williams as the #112 prospect in the country, and they list her at 6’1”, too. Prospects Nation has a page for her but doesn’t give her a ranking.

Last year, with Trinity High School in River Forest, Williams averaged 20.2 points, 8.0 rebounds, 2.4 blocks, 2.3 steals, and 1.9 assists per game. I feel like that is the kind of thing that one might call “multidimensional.” The biggest thing that I think Williams brings to the table here is, quite honestly, size. Marquette’s freshman class last year gave the Golden Eagles a heavy dose of guards under six feet in height. If Williams is capable of being a ballhandler in the open floor or the halfcourt at her size, that starts giving MU a couple of different options.

Here’s a highlight video for you, although it’s unfortunately from July 2019, so it’s a little out of date. It is five minutes long, though.

Here’s what the scholarship chart looks like so you can see how Gillispie and Williams fit in.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Kameron Jones

We go in chronological order here as well as alphabetical! Jones committed to Marquette in late June of this year after getting an offer from the Golden Eagles in late May. That’s a pretty quick turnaround in terms of offer and commitment, but as always, these relationships generally speaking go back long before an offer was actually made official.

Jones, a 6’4”, 180 pound shooting guard, is currently ranked #173 in the country by the 247 Sports Composite system. Quite honestly, no, that’s not knock your boots off impressive. However, 247’s internal setup likes Jones an awful lot more than the Composite, as they have him at #99 in the Class of 2021. If we’re being honest, Jones didn’t even have a 247 page when Marquette offered him in May, so this is all fine. Rivals doesn’t give him a national or state ranking, but does have him as the #34 shooting guard in the class. That’s right in range of being #173 in the country, as the 247 Composite has him at #36 amongst shooting guards. ESPN joins Rivals and the Composite in rating Jones as a three-star prospect.

As a junior for Evangelical Christian School just outside of Memphis, Jones averaged 19.1 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists. That seems pretty good, and that was good enough to earn him honors as Tennessee Division II Class A Mr. Basketball. He was also the leading scorer on Under Armour’s U16 circuit in the summer of 2019, too.

Stevie Mitchell

That’s Stevie’s picture up at the top of the page because someone over at the Reading Eagle and Getty Images are on top of their whole deal.

Mitchell is listed as a 6’2”, 175 pound point guard by 247 Sports. Their Composite system says that he’s a four-star prospect and ranks him #108 in the country, #16 amongst point guards, and #5 in Pennsylvania. The 247 internal ranking arrangement says that Mitchell is #102 in the country, but that doesn’t mean there’s consensus on his ranking. Rivals says that he’s #82 in the Class of 2021 and #15 amongst point guards. ESPN joins the four-star parade and has him at #91 in the country, #18 at his position, and #4 in the state.

The commitment to Marquette came back in early August of this year. The more astute/extremely online MU fan may remember Mitchell’s local daily newspaper running a top of the sports section article reporting that Mitchell was going to commit to Marquette. It took about a week for Mitchell to officially make the announcement, and all I’m going to say about the entire situation is that anyone who was involved in the decision to ruin a kid’s ability to make his own announcement on his own time should be shot out of a cartoonishly large cannon.

Marquette has been keeping an eye on Mitchell for a while, as his offer came in back in December of 2019. Mitchell led his club team in scoring the previous summer, tallying 25 points per game. During his junior year at Wilson High School in Reading, he contributed 22.3 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 2.6 steals per game. This was after he led Wilson in scoring as a freshman and as a sophomore. He’s also a really good dude, as this article helps elaborate.

The best I can do for video for you is this FULL GAME video of the 2020 Class 6A title game, which Wilson wins, 58-56. Mitchell is #3 in white, and be advised, it’s all shot from one endline.

And we wrap up with the scholarship chart for the men, just like we did for the women.