It’s been a week since Division 1 coaching staff has been able to initiate contact with Class of 2022 prospects. Things have definitely not trailed off and/or slowed down for Marquette basketball, as we have three more Class of 2022 scholarship offers to break down here. One is a very prominent prospect in the class, while the other two aren’t quite on a major national level yet.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

Justice Williams

Anyone interested in Marquette offering scholarships to top 25 prospects? Williams is currently ranked #25 in the country in the Class of 2022 by 247 Sports. He’s a 6’3”, 170 pound shooting guard out of Philadelphia, where he attended Roman Catholic High School. I have to use the past tense there because Williams recently announced that he’ll be transferring to Montverde Academy in Florida. I should also point out that the article I just linked to says that Williams is 6’4”, as does his USA Basketball profile page. 247 Sports says that he’s the sixth best shooting guard in his recruiting class, three spots ahead of MU target Roddy Gayle. He’s also the second best player from Pennsylvania, although the top player, Jalen Duren, is also transferring from Roman Catholic to Montverde.

Marquette is joining a long list of heavy hitters that already have a scholarship offer extended to Williams. According to 247’s list, he can pick from Maryland, UConn, Florida, Memphis, Miami, Michigan, Pittsburgh, and Villanova. That’s not even the full list of high majors involved, and the list is likely to keep growing now that he’ll be at Montverde.

Roman Catholic went 18-10 this past season as Williams averaged 18.5 points per game. They reached the finals of the Philadelphia Catholic League playoffs and then advanced to the quarterfinals of the Pennsylvania 6A state tournament before the whole thing was called off due to the coronavirus. According to USA Basketball, Williams averaged 7.0 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game as RC went 26-5. That seems like a pretty solid freshman contribution to a very good team.

Here’s a scouting report from the Inquirer:

The springy Williams, an athletic slasher who can finish at the rim, score from distance and distribute, is regarded as one of the top players in the country in the class of 2022.

And one from 247’s Brian Snow:

A gifted scorer who is a good athlete. Capable of putting up big numbers when he gets it going on the offensive end. At around 6-foot-3 with a good ability to put the ball in the basket from all three levels, Williams is at his best when in attack mode. He can handle it pretty well, and is a solid, not great decision maker. He needs to continue to add strength as he gets older, which should happen, but the tools are there for him to be a high-level college player who excels on the offensive end in every facet of the game.

Here’s a couple of short highlight videos that were published since the start of the year.

Jaden Schutt

We’re moving a little bit closer to Milwaukee for this one. Schutt is listed as a 6’5”, 175 pound shooting guard in the Class of 2022 by 247 Sports. He hails from Yorkville, Illinois, which is on the southwest side of Aurora. As is the case with a lot of the 2022 guys right now, 247 does not have a rating or a ranking for Schutt right now. There’s only two guys from the entire state in 247’s top 100 right now (they’re teammates at Simeon), so it seems pretty reasonable to think that Schutt could be in the top five without difficulty.

His recruiting attention has been very local up to this point, with high major offers coming from Creighton, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Northwestern. From a scroll through of his Twitter page, it looks like most of those have come in the last week or so. He also has an offer from Xavier in there, too.

Schutt averaged 23 points and nine rebounds per game this past year and connected on 45% of his long range bombs as Yorkville Christian went 24-11 overall. His biggest moment was raining in 17 three-pointers to score 51 points in a single game in December. That broke an Illinois state record for threes in a game. Yorkville Christian is in an interesting situation, as they don’t have a conference affiliation and can thus schedule any game at any time during the season. That may end up working out to Schutt’s benefit as it gives his coach and athletic director a lot of freedom to schedule top opponents for Schutt to perform against over the next two seasons.

Here’s a scouting report from Rivals’ Corey Evans:

Schutt presents good size off the ball and should have the ability to play either wing spot in college thanks to the length and tremendous athleticism he possesses. Where his true value comes is in his shooting, where he can make shots out of the standstill, off the catch, and out of the mid-range pull-up.

Here’s 12 minutes of highlights from his freshman season.

There’s a 14 minute highlight reel from his sophomore season up on his Hudl page, but I can’t embed that here without blocking this entire article from Apple News.

Perry Smith

Perry Smith should be a familiar name to you if you read our rundown of guys that Marquette made contact with on the first day of being able to call 2022 prospects. He was tucked in there somewhere, and this “make contact on Day 1, circle back and make an offer later” is a tactic that we’ve seen from Steve Wojciechowski in the past.

In any case, Smith is a 6’8”, 210 pound small forward according to 247 Sports. He hails from Greenville, South Carolina, where he attends Legacy Early College, which is actually a public charter school, not a prep academy like you might guess from the name. He currently does not have a rating or a ranking from 247 Sports, but that’s just the way it is for Class of 2022 guys right now.

At least according to 247 Sports, Smith has a pretty short list of offers so far. The only names on his board are DePaul, LSU, Nebraska, and Texas A&M. I feel safe in saying that those aren’t his only offers, as I’m sure there are some smaller programs that have already made an offer. Smith’s own Twitter page lists offers from Presbyterian and TCU, so don’t trust everything you need on the internet, other than the other things you read on the internet, of course.

Max Preps shows LEC going 22-10 this past season, which is pretty good. Smith was not one of the stars of the squad during his sophomore year, although that’s the kind of thing that happens when you have two top 200 prospects a year ahead of you in school. Smith did average 5.7 points and 4.1 rebounds in the 29 games that Max Preps has stats for, and that’s a pretty solid contribution for a sophomore.

The best I can do for an embeddable video is 3+ minutes from last June:

He does have a Hudl page, and there’s a 3+ minute sophomore year highlight reel that was just published in late March over there.

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And so, it’s time for the scholarship chart.

We’re looking at the Class of 2022 for these offers, and until the Class of 2021 gets nailed down, we can’t really talk about how new offers fit into the picture. Right now, Marquette is only projecting to be replacing Greg Elliott with this recruiting class. However, the Golden Eagles are looking at five spots to fill in the fall of 2021. Odds are all of those spots won’t get filled, so the number that gets rolled over to 2022 — one? two? — plays a big part in things here. In addition to that, any kind of high profile prospect coming in for 2021 alters Marquette’s needs for 2022 as well. It’s a delicate juggling act for the MU coaching staff, so for now, all they can do is offer guys that they know they can help develop into high major talents and keep building relationships.