Want To Know What Recruits Are Attending Marquette Madness Tonight?

Tonight is Marquette Madness, the official kick off for the Marquette men’s and women’s basketball season. Yes, practice started for the two teams earlier in the week, but Friday night’s activities at the McGuire Center are the official public jumping off point for the season.

Since it’s always a Big Deal, it’s always a fun time to get recruits visiting campus, usually on an unofficial visit, but sometimes on an official one as well.

I say it’s always a fun time, but at least as of Friday morning.... there doesn’t seem to be a lot of people making it known that they’ll be attending MU Madness. In fact, I’ve got just two names to show you, both for the men’s basketball team.

If we find out more names as the day goes on, we’ll edit as we go. In fact, if you find out about someone attending and you haven’t seen them added in here yet, please shout about it in the comments section! As a side note: High school girls basketball coaches! Tweet about your players getting invited to Marquette Madness more often! Or at least email me!

Dallas Bear

Bear is listed as a 6’7” small forward by 247 Sports, but Rivals (and his own Twitter bio) says that he’s 6’8” and 180 pounds. Hailing from Cedar Falls, Iowa, Bear is in the Class of 2023, and Marquette reached out to him on the first day that coaches could initiate contact with that group of recruits during the summer. This will be Bear’s second visit to campus, or at least second that he’s mentioned on the Twitter Machine after making an unofficial visit in mid-August.

As was the case in June, it seems that Bear is not really getting the kind of attention that you might expect from a guy making a second unofficial visit to campus in six weeks. 247 only lists Bryant as a Division 1 offer for him with attention from Augustana as well, while Rivals matches the Bryant offer as his only one but adds Northern Iowa and Wisconsin to the interest pile. Oh, and I didn’t mention: Bear isn’t rated or ranked by either recruiting service at the moment, and no, Marquette has not officially offered him a scholarship as far as I can tell.

CJ Hyland

Hyland is a Class of 2024 prospect hailing from Sugar Hill, Georgia, where he attends Lanier High School. I’m not 100% sure on this, but depending on who you talk to, you might consider Sugar Hill part of the Atlanta suburbs, but it’s about 40 miles away from the city proper.

Information on Hyland is limited right now, as he doesn’t appear to have a 247 Sports page or a Rivals page or a Verbal Commits page at this point. I did track down this Prep Hoops page for him though, and so we know he’s a 5’11” combo guard.

I am slightly fascinated by the fact that Hyland mentions Carl Richburg, MU’s Director Of Recruiting, in his tweet as opposed to Shaka Smart or one of his three official assistants. It’s not a big deal, as I’m guessing a lot of communication goes through Richburg at this point, especially for prospects who are a little bit down the road like Hyland since he’s a 2024 guy. You can tell that Hyland is clearly interested in Marquette at this juncture of his recruiting because this has to be an unofficial visit for him. You can’t take an official visit until your junior year, and Hyland is currently a sophomore.

UPDATE TIME!

Tayshawn Bridges

Tayshawn Bridges is a local guy! He’s currently attending Milwaukee Academy of Science, which is just right up the street from Marquette’s campus, after attending Brookfield East as a freshman. He is listed by 247 Sports as a 6’1”, 180 pound point guard in the Class of 2024. No rating or ranking in either the Composite or 247’s internal system, but they aren’t rating or ranking anyone in that class yet. Having a page at all at this point is a pretty solid accomplishment. 247’s Dushawn London did a “get to know him” article on Bridges back in December 2020, so check that out for a scouting report. The major conference offers are already piling up for him, even though he’s only a sophomore, with the likes of Auburn, Florida State, Iowa, and Maryland already getting involved.

Jalen Hooks

Jalen Hooks is a 6’6”, 180 pound small forward according to 247 Sports, but as we learned this summer, he’s actually 6’7” and 205 pounds. He is from Indianapolis, where he attends Crispus Attucks High School. Hooks is currently the #69 player in the country for the Class of 2023 according to the 247 Composite system, and their internal rankings have him at #52. That’s a little bit up in the internal rankings from where Hooks was when Marquette offered him a scholarship while he was on an unofficial visit in June. He wasn’t in the Composite at all at the time, so it seems like other recruiting services are still lagging behind on scouting him.

I have to say, if he was just on campus in June and now he’s back again on his own dime from Indianapolis, then he’s definitely interested in what Shaka Smart is selling.

Dalen Davis

Okay, so this one is a little bit more of a Context Clue than an actual announcement that Davis is at Madness. When you see Milwaukee and those blue and gold hearts together, I think it’s pretty easy to draw the conclusion that he’s in attendance.

247 Sports lists Davis as a 5’11”, 165 pound point guard out of Chicago in the Class of 2023. He attends Whitney Young High School, which is particularly notable at the moment since his Class of 2022 teammate, A.J. Casey, 1) has Marquette in his top eight and 2) is currently on an official visit to DePaul. No ratings or rankings for Davis at this point from 247, but they list offers from DePaul, Illinois, Nebraska, South Carolina, and Stanford. It would appear that Davis does not have an offer from Marquette at this point — we don’t have an article about it — but just because we don’t know about it right now doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened, either. This article from Phenom Hoop Report says that Davis has an offer in hand from Kansas, so clearly high major programs are aware of him at this point.

Anthony Gause