Christian Watson Includes Marquette In His Top 8

On June 18th, Marquette men’s basketball offered a scholarship to Class of 2022 forward Christian Watson. On July 5th, just 17 days later, Watson announced a top 8 list that included said Golden Eagles as one of the teams that he is most interested in going forward. MU is joined on that list by three fellow Big East squads in Georgetown, Providence, and Xavier, along with Miami, Penn State, Rutgers, and VCU.

Dushawn London from 247 Sports talked to Watson about his cutdown list. Here’s what he had to say, first about whether this is a final list:

“I would say this is my top 8 right now but Im not too open to new schools entering my recruitment unless it’s a school that I really like,” he said. “I would say these schools are the schools Im going with right now moving forward. Im big on culture and environment and I feel like all these schools have a family environment, everyone has bought in and these coaches really love me. I don’t think they’re just telling me things I want to hear and coming from them they’re 100% honest and they believe in my game.”

And about Marquette:

“I included Marquette because Coach Shaka Smart is a great coach who’s been around for a while. He took VCU to a lot of final fours and NCAA appearances. They’re a great program, they love my game and can see me playing right away. They see that I fit their playing style really well and have been on big on me big lately. Im going to get down there at some point.”

And what he’s expecting from the coaching staffs going forward towards making a decision:

“Im paying attention to the consistency from each school. Im looking to see that the coaches contact me everyday, and come out to my games . Im going to pay attention to who’s there from the staff, the head coaches mainly. Im taking a couple more visits so when I get down to schools l haven’t visited yet I can compare that to the schools that I already visited thats in my top 8.”

In the intervening three weeks between when Marquette offered Watson a scholarship and when he made his cutdown list, the national spotlight has caught up with the attention level that he has been getting on the recruiting trail. 247 Sports’ Composite system went from calling Watson a three-star prospect ranked #231 in the country to a three-star prospect ranked #140 in the country. He’s not that far from four-star territory, which kicks in at #118. The 6’6” Washington, D.C. standout is the best player in The District in the Class of 2022 as well as the #35 small forward prospect in the country.

Here’s four minutes of highlights.

Watson does have a Hudl page that was last updated in March of this year, so there’s more than enough highlights to keep you busy for a while.

Scholarship chart time!

Watson is the second 2022 prospect to include Marquette in a cutdown list after Trejuan Holloman did so the other day. The Golden Eagles and head coach Shaka Smart are looking at having four scholarship spots to fill for the 2022-23 season, and I’d have to say that Watson sounds like he fits the mold for the kind of player that Smart values. Tough, rangy, plays hard on both ends, maybe more of a Basketball Player than any particular position on the court. Of course, that’s mostly just guessing and extrapolating, since we haven’t actually seen a Smart-coached Marquette team. Unfortunately for Watson, he’s not really going to be able to see one before he’s eligible to sign a letter of intent, so we’ll see how things go as the summer progresses.