2021 Prospect Stevie Mitchell Has Marquette In His Top 7

Hello and welcome to another fun discussion of a top 100 prospect that has included YOUR Marquette in a trimmed down recruiting list. In this case, it’s Class of 2021 point guard prospect Stevie Mitchell that has Marquette men’s basketball in his top seven as announced on June 9th. The Golden Eagles are joined in the group by Georgia Tech, Miami, St. Joseph’s, Stanford, Temple, and Villanova.

The inclusion of Villanova is notable. The offer from Jay Wright came through just a few days before Mitchell announced his cutdown list. Now, he’s saying that this is a top seven, not a final seven, but to a certain extent, it’s important to be on the list right now. If you were a coach that was recruiting Stevie Mitchell up until now, then you’re probably not going to get him to answer your phone calls now. However, if you’re, say, John Calipari at Kentucky, you might be able to get a foot in the door. In any case, it’s clear that Mitchell is very interested in Villanova to include them so quickly after an official offer. It’s also clear that Mitchell is fairly important to the Wildcats, as they made sure to get the offer in so they could stay in the picture.

Marquette offered a scholarship to Mitchell back in early December of 2019, so this is something of a quick turnaround into making a top seven like this, just not as quick as Villanova. Since that offer was made, Mitchell has moved himself into 247 Sports’ internal ranking system, coming in at #104 in the Class of 2021. While you would think that being ranked at all in their internal system would be beneficial to his Composite ranking, that’s not the case. The 6’2”, 165 pound Mitchell was #97 back in early December, and now he’s exactly #100. It’s not like there’s a lot of difference in three spots at that range, and he’s still a four star prospect. Think about it this way: If you look at his rating of 0.9595 at the moment, that would make him a better prospect than Brendan Bailey.

247’s Travis Branham did a scouting report for Mitchell in late April, projecting him as a Power Five Starter, which I presume that actually means Major Seven Starter since there is no such thing as Power Five in college basketball. In any case, here’s the quick rundown:

Stevie Mitchell is a skilled point guard prospect. He has a polished handle with advanced footwork, doing a good job of utilizing jabs and change of direction to get where he wants on the floor. He has a score-first mindset and doing so from all three levels but is also a willing and talented passer with vision who can facilitate with both hands. Areas to improve are his athleticism and speeding up his release on his jumper.

I’m not quite sure that anyone can actually improve on their athleticism, as that seems to be an innate physical condition that you either have or you don’t. However, that does match something that Mitchell’s grassroots team coach told the Reading Eagle back around when MU offered the scholarship.

“He’s not super-quick or super-athletic,” Williams said, “but he has a sense of how to get to spots on the floor without effort. Everything with Stevie is at a controlled pace, and he maintains that against (top) competition.

According to this article from 247’s Evan Daniels, Mitchell averaged 22.3 points per game this season for Wilson High School. They ended up going 28-1 on the year, so that’s a pretty good indicator of what kind of impact he’s having on his squad.

It looks like there’s not any videos that we can embed here, but if you go check out Mitchell’s Hudl page, there’s a Junior Season Highlights video right at the top right now. That’s over seven minutes of footage, so that should keep you busy for a while.

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

Marquette’s involvement with Mitchell at this point is kind of fascinating. With Symir Torrence expected to be in his junior year and D.J. Carton currently facing his first season of eligibility in the fall of 2021 after transferring (there’s a waiver pending, so we’ll see), head coach Steve Wojciechowski seems to totally set in terms of point guards for that year, as well as the year after that. However, you can never really have too many quality ballhandlers on the roster, and for the 2021-22 season, MU will be in need of replacing Koby McEwen on the roster as well. With as many as five open roster spots to fill for the fall of 2021, you have to get at least one point guard in that group. There’s a certain amount of long term planning that has to be done with that many scholarships available, and bringing in a top 100 point guard is definitely the right move.