Marquette Offers A Scholarship To 2021 Point Guard Tyrese Hunter

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I really don’t care about what prospects Marquette actually signs up for any sport. It’s the coach’s job in their sport to get the best players that they can see how to push them to the biggest possible upside, and then win with whatever players that they do have available to them.

As such, I don’t spend much time at all fretting about whether or not Marquette is putting enough effort in to recruit any particular high school student. I have zero control over it, and thus why waste my energy on it?

With that said, I have started to wonder how much time and energy MU men’s basketball was going to spend scouting Class of 2021 point guard Tyrese Hunter without actually offering him a scholarship. That changed on Saturday, when head coach Steve Wojciechowski issued the offer to Hunter while the young man was on an official visit to Marquette.

247 Sports lists Hunter at 6’0” tall and 160 pounds. He’s a point guard hailing from Racine, Wisconsin, where he attends St. Catherine’s High School. According to the 247 Sports Composite system, Hunter is the #111 prospect in the country right now. That makes him the #16 point guard in the class, trailing behind guys like Isael Silva and Carter Whitt who have had recruiting attention from MU in the past. Hunter is the #2 prospect in the state of Wisconsin according to 247, with only Patrick Baldwin, the #3 prospect in the country, sitting ahead of him.

It appears that Marquette is the best basketball program to offer a scholarship to Hunter at this point. He has offers from a bunch of mid-majors already, along with Minnesota and DePaul. 247 says that he has an offer from Texas A&M, but it’s not clear as to whether that’s since Buzz Williams was hired in March of 2019.

As mentioned, Hunter attends St. Cat’s in Racine. That may be familiar to long-term Marquette fans, as it’s the same high school that produced former Marquette players Jake Thomas, Jim McIlvaine, and Jim Chones. According to WisSports.net, St. Catherine’s is 22-0 this season and a perfect 16-0 in conference play. They’ll begin their path to the Wisconsin Division 3 state title on Friday night as the #1 seed in their part of the bracket when they host the winner of Tuesday night’s game between Big Foot and Whitewater. Hunter is averaging 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 3.0 steals for the Angels.

Here’s a three minute highlight reel from August 2019, which is the best I can do for you. It includes clips from what I think is a team camp in a very familiar gym to Marquette fans.......

In terms of how Hunter might fit into the Marquette roster starting in 2021-22, well, the obvious note is that Koby McEwen will have finished his collegiate career after the 2020-21 season. As such, Marquette will obviously be in need of another quality player in the backcourt. MU won’t necessarily be looking for immediate impact from a freshman guard, as the Golden Eagles still project to have Greg Elliott, Symir Torrence, and Dexter Akanno on board at that point. Depending on how the Class of 2020 works out in terms of front court play, that might actually nudge Brendan Bailey around to more of a backcourt role for his senior season, but that’s a hypothetical. We also don’t know how Marquette will address the three scholarships that currently sit open for the fall of 2020, and whether that’s a tradition transfer, a grad transfer, or perhaps even Karim Mane, that could have an impact on the roster construction by the time that Hunter is looking at starting college.

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