Somehow, We Have More Marquette Transfer News To Discuss

Hey! Did you think that new Marquette men’s basketball head coach Shaka Smart was done recruiting guys to the team for his first season in charge? In the last couple of days, we saw Kur Kuath join the team as well as Dexter Akanno and D.J. Carton make their departures from the program. It’s been busy!

And we’re not done yet!

On Thursday, we got two more names to watch.

Jordan Hall

Jordan Hall is a 6’8”, 210 pound dude who is listed as a guard on CBB Reference and a guard/forward by St. Joseph’s, which is where he played as a freshman this past season. He played in all 20 of the Hawks’ games, starting in 18 of them. He played over 31 minutes a night on average, and chipped in 10.6 points, 5.9 rebounds, 5.7 assists, and 1.3 steals per game as St. Joe’s went 5-15.

We should probably talk about the assists before going any further. That 5.7 per game turns into an assist rate of 35.3% according to KenPom.com, and that was #24 in the country. REPEAT: Shaka Smart has reached out to a top 25 passer in an effort to get him to transfer to Marquette. In light of D.J. Carton’s departure, this seems like extra fantastic news, and the fact that Hall is 6’8” tall is just icing on the cake.

In fact, Hall might have had a better assist rate if he didn’t have a turnover problem. His turnover rate was 23.5%, which is bad, because anything over 20% is not great. Now, we can chalk a lot of that up to “he was a freshman” and “he was playing point guard for a team that didn’t have a lot of success.” There’s a lot to like elsewhere, though, as Hall just missed the top 400 in the country in defensive rebounding rate, which is how he got to nearly six caroms per game, and he shot 35% from behind the three-point line, which is more than respectable. He shot nearly 39% against Atlantic 10 opponents and 37% against SJU’s six games against what KenPom calls Tier A opponents, or their toughest games of the season.

Kario Oquendo

No, I didn’t know that Marquette had even extended Mr. Oquendo an offer, and to be honest, his Twitter account doesn’t make that clear, either. If you’re wondering if it seems like he popped up out of nowhere, that’s not entirely wrong.

Oquendo was the #317 prospect in the country for the Class of 2020. Coming out of Titusville, Florida, the 6’4”, 195 pound Oquendo had a handful of mid-major scholarship offers but instead opted to head to Florida Southwestern State College for his freshman year of college. In his first year at the junior college in Fort Meyers, Oquendo averaged 13.5 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game in 23 appearances including 10 starts. He shot 55% from the field and 40% from behind the three-point line, although he only fired off less than three long range shots per game.

And now he’s got Marquette, Oregon, and Georgia knocking on his door. Seems like things are looking up for the Astronaut High School grad.

You wanna watch some highlights that FSWC put together?

And now, the handy dandy Marquette scholarship chart.

Marquette currently — and boy, is the word “currently” doing a lot of heavy lifting in this sentence — has 12 guys solidly projected as on the 2021-22 roster. Dawson Garcia remains a mystery, as he entered the NBA Draft without hiring an agent. If he returns to Marquette, then the Golden Eagles would be full up on scholarships at the NCAA allowed max of 13..... and thus someone from the list of four returning guys would have to be headed elsewhere to make space for either Hall or Oquendo. I have to say, Oquendo having Marquette in his final three on the morning of April 29th tells us that Marquette is operating with the idea that they have space for him AND that they were operating that way long before D.J. Carton opted for a pro career the day before.

Anyway, we’re probably not anywhere close to settled on this roster. That’s the big thing to take away from all of this.