Class of 2022

Terrance Arceneaux

No Twitter for Arceneaux himself, but his high school team’s account retweeted this one, so we’ll count that as confirmation that this is legit? MU assistant coach Cody Hatt is following this account as well, so maybe that helps the authenticity out here.

I’m going out of my way to make the point that I’m not 100% sure about this one because Arceneaux is currently ranked #67 in the country in the Class of 2022 by the 247 Composite system. I’m not trying to get everyone over-excited about a top 70 guy if there’s a question about whether or not Shaka Smart has offered him a scholarship. Arceneaux is listed as a 6’6”, 190 pound small forward out of Beaumont, Texas. As a Texas guy from down around the Houston area, I’m fascinated by the idea that Smart apparently didn’t offer him a scholarship while the head coach for the Longhorns but has jumped on board now. He’s been a top 100 or top 100-ish prospect the entire time that 247 has been ranking him back in mid-November of 2020. Maybe it’s just a roster construction issue for Smart when he was in Austin?

Anyway, Arceneaux is noted as the #19 small forward in 2022, although I think that might make him the top prospect at the position that Marquette is definitely involved with since the coaching change. He’s also the #7 prospect in the state of Texas, and imagine how much it stinks to be one of the 70 best guys in the country and you can’t even crack the top five in your own state.

He already has three Crystal Ball predictions for Houston, and all three have come since July 13th. I hate putting any weight whatsoever into this thing until the kid actually says “I’m announcing my decision on Friday” or whatever, but three people running at about the same time to pick the local D1 program for Arceneaux does feel an awful lot like Marquette is coming in late to the party here.

Here’s a scouting report from back in January:

Arceneaux is an explosive athlete with a wiry build. He is a long and rangy prospect who gets off his feet to rise up in a hurry and throw down exciting dunks coming down the lane. He stands out on the defensive end with excellent length combined with great activity and fluid strides. Each time he laces them up, Arceneaux is bound to get his fair share of deflections and blocks. His best basketball is ahead of him if he continues to improve his jumpshot and ability to play off a live dribble in the half-court.

Can I interest you in Arceneaux hitting not one but TWO buzzer beaters in the state title game this past spring? First one forced overtime, second one gave his team the victory.

Here’s four minutes of highlights from his junior season:

Reed Bailey

Again no tweet from the player on this one, but Andrew Slater is a regular recruiting news guy AND he tagged Bailey, so this feels trustworthy.

Reed Bailey is listed at 6’9” and 190 pounds by 247 Sports, but we’ll trust that he’s actually up to 6’10” now. He attends Brewster Academy in New Hampshire, but he’s originally from Massachusetts. Bailey is not currently rated or ranked in 247’s Composite, but he’s noted as a three-star prospect and slotted as the 38th best power forward in the country in their internal system.

There are two recorded visits on the books for Bailey already since the summer started: Xavier and Loyola Chicago. We can safely say that they’re towards the top of his list, which also includes high major offers from Boston College, Iowa, Maryland, and Virginia Tech.

I can’t track anything down about his stats this past season, although Brewster usually has a pretty good team and he might not have been terribly productive as a result. I also can’t find any videos to embed here, so if you know of somewhere that someone is hiding Bailey highlights, drop it in the comments.

2023

Aaron Clark

Clark is a 6’6”, 182 pound shooting guard out of New Jersey, where he attends St. Benedict’s, although you picked all of that up if you read the tweet from Andrew Slater. 247’s Composite and internal both do not have a rating or a ranking for Clark at this point, but Rivals has him at #53 as a four-star prospect as Slater said he was. I would imagine it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the recruiting scouting world catches up to Rivals here if he is in fact 6’6”.

It looks like high majors are just now getting an interest in Clark. Offers from Seton Hall, St. John’s, and Rutgers are explained by being local for him, but Iowa, Kansas State, LSU, TCU, and Washington are very much not local to the New Jersey area, and most of those teams can’t even claim that their league covers NJ as part of their footprint like Marquette can.

I found this article that says that Clark averaged 14 points a game in 2019-20 for Easton High School in Pennsylvania, so that’s pretty good. This article on his transfer from Easton to St. Benedict’s says that was in his sophomore season after averaging five points a game as a freshman. I suspect this means that Clark has reclassified to 2023, perhaps as a result of his transfer. That’s what the math of this says, as Class of 2023 means that he just finished his sophomore year of high school.

Here’s a two minute highlight reel:

Isaiah Coleman

Based on the location in the bio for this AAU program and the location of the high school listed on this 247 Sports page and the hometown listed there and the height listed, I’m going to presume that we’re looking at the right guy here.

Attending National Christian Academy just outside of Washington, D.C., Isaiah Coleman is listed as a 6’5”, 180 pound small forward by 247 Sports. At that height and weight, I can see why his club team is calling him a guard, at least for now. He doesn’t currently have a rating or a ranking in either 247’s internal or Composite systems, but that’s not terribly surprising for a 2023 prospect given everything that’s happened over the last year.

While Coleman isn’t jumping into the rankings yet, that doesn’t mean that high major programs aren’t interested. Big East rivals DePaul and Georgetown are both listed as involved with Coleman, and local squad Maryland is on the board as well. MU might be the first high major offer for him, as none of the other three are listed as having offered Coleman yet.

Coleman averaged 13.3 points per game as a freshman at Chancellor High School in Fredericksburg, Virginia, which is a pretty decent hike down the road from D.C. I don’t think that NCA is a boarding school, so I’m not exactly sure how the Colemans are making this transition work in terms of attendance, but I’m also not in charge of worrying about that either. I do wish that I could find more about how NCA’s 2020-21 basketball season might have gone, but that seems to be not happening.

I also don’t have any videos for you here. I suspect that all of this has to do with COVID restrictions one way or another, so it is what it is for now.

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Scholarship chart time!

We’ll just keep right on saying it until something changes: We don’t know what to make of MU’s recruiting for the Class of 2023 until they finally get some Class of 2022 commitments on the board. With no projected seniors in 2022-23, using all of the four available scholarships still left for that season means that the Golden Eagles just won’t be able to take any freshmen for 2023-24.

This isn’t a complaint about Shaka Smart’s speed at signing up 2022 prospects, by the way. We’re just now getting into the window where players usually start committing, if they’re the kind of guy who wants it done by the time school starts in the fall. Take into account that Smart has only been on the job at Marquette for four months, and you can see why MU doesn’t have anyone committed yet. It takes a minute to build relationships to the point of getting that commitment, and even though Smart was recruiting 2022 guys at Texas, that doesn’t necessarily mean that those guys are just as interested in coming to Milwaukee for their collegiate career.

And so we keep waiting before being able to make definitive statements about the direction of the recruiting.....