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I think we can officially say that new Marquette men’s basketball coach Shaka Smart is off and running on the recruiting trails for the future of the program. Smart’s attention was, understandably, focused on setting his 2021-22 roster right out of the gate, with just offers for future classes going out to Seth Trimble and Leon Bond during the month of April. But, as you can see from our catch-all Marquette Recruiting hub (go ahead and bookmark that if you want to have a quick shortcut to all the recruiting news that’s fit to print), you’re currently reading the third article on this site about five new offers from men’s basketball just since the 27th of May. All of the previous offers are for the Class of 2022, as is today’s offer, which makes sense, as Smart has to get up and running immediately for a recruiting class that will be able to sign national letters of intent in less than six months.
With that fun preamble out of the way, let’s dive in to the newest offer, which went out to Class of 2022 prospect Rowan Brumbaugh.
#AG2G Excited to say I’ve received an offer from coach Smart and Marquette University! #GoGoldenEagles #TTP pic.twitter.com/L9bwWqkuCx
— Rowan Brumbaugh (@BrumbaughRowan) May 28, 2021
247 Sports lists Brumbaugh, who attends Northfield Mount Hermon in Massachusetts, as a 6’4”, 180 pound point guard. The Washington, D.C., area native currently does not have a rating or a ranking in either the 247 Composite or internal systems, so we’re just flying blind here for now, I guess.
Well, not entirely blind, I suppose. We can just presume that the evaluators are falling behind the pace set by high major coaches. There are not one, not two, but twelve high major programs who have already offered Brumbaugh a scholarship according to 247 Sports. That list includes but is not limited to Big East friends Georgetown, Butler, DePaul, Seton Hall, and Xavier. If there’s that many power conference coaches appreciating what Brumbaugh can potentially offer their teams, then I’m going presume that he will be a top 150 prospect at worst before long.
Part of the reason why the recruiting services haven’t put the work in to properly rate and rank Brumbaugh is the pure fact that they haven’t been able to do that. Northfield Mount Hermon didn’t play a season in 2020-21 due to the pandemic, so there hasn’t been much in the way of opportunities to watch Brumbaugh play over the past year. From reading a couple of different articles, Brumbaugh appears to have focused on individual development in the past 12 months, and he thinks he’s gotten a lot better in that time. He also says that he’s grown over two inches in that time as well, and getting up to 6’4” as a point guard is a pretty good way to get a lot of teams and coaches to give you a ton of attention.
Here’s three minutes of highlights that was posted in early April when the club season got up and running again:
And now, the scholarship chart!
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Quite honestly, we don’t know who’s going to play point guard for Marquette in 2021-22, much less 2022-23 when Brumbaugh would be arriving on campus. In theory, at least this way it looks like right now, it’ll be Stevie Mitchell this coming year, but he’ll be a freshman and who knows how that will go. As such, adding a high major quality guard like Brumbaugh appears to be rounding into would be a pretty solid move for Shaka Smart for his first official recruiting class. In addition to that, there’s a solid chance that Greg Elliott may end up leaving Marquette after this coming season even with his COVID bonus season available to him, and that would leave the Golden Eagles in need of more reliable guards in the backcourt no matter what happens with the other guys on the roster.