Marquette Women’s Basketball Offers A Scholarship To Top 2022 Prospect Ayanna Patterson

We’re doing a little bit of catchup here at Anonymous Eagle, but hey, it’s kind of a big deal, so please forgive me for the delay. Back in the middle of the month, Marquette women’s basketball head coach Megan Duffy extended a scholarship offer to Class of 2022 prospect Ayanna Patterson.

According to Prep Girls Hoops Indiana, Patterson is a 6’3” wing player hailing from Fort Wayne, IN. She attends Homestead High School there, which is on the west side of town. Remember, this is women’s basketball we’re talking about, so a 6’3” wing is pretty big, and she’s also only just finishing her sophomore year of high school right now.

Okay, ready for the important stuff? Deep breath, kids.

Patterson is currently ranked #3 in the country by ESPN, and as a five star prospect, she’s the top wing in the class.

Yep.

Now, as you scroll through Patterson’s Twitter, it’s clear that Marquette is late to the party. Not very late, mind you, but just a little bit late. Back in late April, Patterson snagged rapid fire offers from North Carolina, UCLA, Mississippi State, and Notre Dame. This article from February 2019 — which mentions that Patterson has been dunking in practice..... over a year ago..... — mentions that she has offers from Tennessee, South Carolina, and Louisville amongst other schools. Look, she’s a tippy top prospect in the Class of 2022. At this point in Megan Duffy’s still very young tenure, merely staying in the picture for Patterson will be a pretty big accomplishment. Also, it’s important to remember that we’re 18 months away from the time when the Class of 2022 can sign letters of intent, so we’re a verrrrrry long way away from Patterson making any kind of a decision about her collegiate future.

Here’s a scouting report from ESPN’s recruiting page for Patterson:

Athletic forward prospect knocks down mid-range jumpers in traffic; quick-leaper, pounds the glass, visits the charity stripe with consistency; explosive in the paint, delivers results with consistency; versatile defender.

As good as Patterson might be, it’s not all sunshine and lollypops for her. Homestead went 27-2 this past season according to MaxPreps, which is obviously pretty good. The second loss of the season came in the Indiana Class 4A regional championship, where Homestead lost to eventual state runner up Northwestern...... by the score of 72-35. Yep. That is a wild score for a team that has a top national prospect on it, but it’s also wild in the context of some of Homestead’s victories thru the season. They held 10 teams under 30 points themselves, including holding opponents under 20 points five times. One of those 10 games was in the regional semis, where they beat Carroll 51-24. That’s wild.

As a freshman, she was averaging 12.9 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks per game in early February. In January 2020, midway through her sophomore year, Patterson was averaging 13.1 points and 8.9 rebounds for Homestead, while Class of 2020 prospect and Central Michigan signee Sydney Graber was leading the squad with just over 17 points per game, all while head coach Rod Parker deals with a cancer diagnosis.

Let’s turn our attention to the Marquette scholarship chart.

As you can see from the chart, MU’s recruiting class for 2022 is kind of up in the air in terms of what the Golden Eagles are looking to accomplish. Chloe Marotta is the only projected senior departing from the previous year, so it’s possible that Duffy could have only one scholarship available. However, right now, there are three open spots for 2021-22, and we have no idea how full Duffy will end up going with those scholarships. Managing to sign a player like Patterson for 2022-23 would be a monumentally important thing for Marquette, not just because of her national ranking. 2022-23 will be the senior season for the players that just finished their freshman season, and so you would think that would be a big year in terms of what Marquette could possibly accomplish as a team. Adding a tippy top freshman to the crew would only add a few rungs to the ladder there. It’s a long way off, of course, and MU managing to elbow their way into the blue blood programs won’t be easy.