Marquette Basketball Offers Scholarships To Jahnathan Lamothe & Alassane Amadou

Oh, hey there.

Right now, you’re reading a recruiting article that we opened up and started in early August. Turns out, the run of season preview things for soccer and volleyball pushed this to the backburner for a while. That’s okay, we’re here to talk about two Class of 2023 prospects that picked up offers from Marquette men’s basketball in early August. These guys aren’t eligible to sign letters of intent for over a year, so we’re a long, long ways off from either young man making a decision anyway.

Let’s get after it, shall we?

Jahnathan Lamothe

For those of you playing at home, yes, that’s current Marquette sophomore Justin Lewis in the picture, not Jahnathan Lamothe on a visit and wearing some gear for a photo shoot.

247 Sports lists Lamothe as a 6’4”, 180 pound combo guard, and as you probably guessed from the Justin Lewis picture, he hails from Baltimore, Maryland, just like Lewis. Lamothe is currently ranked #48 in the Class of 2023 by 247 Sports, which makes him the #11 combo guard prospect in the class and the top prospect in the state of Maryland. That all seems pretty good, and it’s about on pace with where Lamothe was when Marquette made contact with him on the first day of contact with 2023 prospects back in June.

Lamothe already has a long list of teams after him, and you could say that if I only mentioned the Big East programs involved. Creighton, DePaul, Georgetown, and Seton Hall have already beaten Marquette to the punch here. There’s also Ohio State, Virginia Tech, and in-state power Maryland as well, and the list goes on and on and on. That’s what you would expect for a top 50 guy, even at this relatively early point in his recruitment.

I can’t track down any regular season stats from Lamothe’s season at St. Frances Academy this past school year, but maybe that’s okay. Keeping in mind that Lamothe was only a sophomore on this team, let me drop in this item from the Baltimore Sun back in March:

In defeating its fiercest rival Mount Saint Joseph on Wednesday night, 78-67, St. Frances completed the condensed regular season at 13-0 with an average margin of victory of 30 points.

On Wednesday, freshman center Derik Queen took the lead role with 23 points and seven rebounds, while Jahnathan Lamothe (13 points), Daquan Davis (13 points) and Cortez Johnson (12 points) also reached double figures. The Panthers swept the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference (12-0) and Baltimore Catholic League (7-0) regular-season titles in bold fashion.

A lot of things to consider here: 1) SFA was smashing people, 2) that might have limited minutes for Lamothe, 3) with four guys getting double digits in their biggest rivalry game, there’s clearly a chance of “anybody can lead us on any given night” going on thus somewhat limiting Lamothe’s stats. In any case, his prep stats are a lot less important to his recruitment than what Shaka Smart thinks about him anyway.

I can’t track down any particularly great video to embed of Lamothe, so if anyone knows of any, then please drop it into the comments.

Alassane Amadou

While Lamothe is already a high profile target for many schools, the same can not be said for Alassane Amadou. Facts are facts: He doesn’t even have a 247 Sports profile page yet, at least not with that name on it. There is one for an Al Amadou in the Class of 2023, and I want to say it’s the same guy since how many Al Amadous can there be playing for the Philly Pride grassroots team? He does, however, have a City of Basketball Love page because he is a Philadelphia guy so of course he does. CoBL lists him at 6’9” tall and weighing 190 pounds, which definitely slots him in as a forward of one variety or another. 6’9” and 190 also slots him directly into the generalized type of recruit that Shaka Smart has been leaning towards since taking the Marquette job.

CoBL only lists five offers for Amadou. Drexel was first way back in February of 2020, and they were followed by Siena, La Salle, and Saint Joseph’s before summer 2020 was over. Cal Poly got involved in June of this year and marked Amadou’s first offer outside the Northeast. If we spin ourselves over to his Verbal Commits page, it appears he also has offers from VCU, Dayton, and Maryland, the last of which came right about at the same time as the offer from MU.

This article from 247 Sports has that aforementioned Al Amadou mentioning the same first four offers back in July 2021, so again, probably the same guy.

Here’s a scouting report dated April 28, 2021 from City of Basketball Love:

A lanky wing forward, Amadou is a developing frontcourt prospect with an intriguing toolset. His best asset is his ability to defend the rim and finish around the bucket, with good second and third-effort on the glass. He’s also a capable 3-point shooter and can put the ball on the floor, but those tools are all still a work in project. High-ceiling for sure but needs to add muscle to his frame and refine offensively.

Let’s be honest: Every high school sophomore with a Division 1 future needs to add muscle to his frame. In any case, Amadou already sounds like a prototypical 3-and-D guy, although I don’t know how much rim protecting he can do in the Big East until he does add said muscle. It’s also possible that he just has one of those bodies that’s never going to let him become as well-defined in that department, so we’ll have to wait and see how he might fit in with the Golden Eagles down the line.

I’m not going to lie to you: Trying to find highlight videos to embed for you resulted in me finding a 37 second clip (too short, who cares) from October 2018 (so long ago, who cares) that called Amadou a freshman (wait, what, he’s supposed to be starting his junior year right now) at Quakertown High School..... which is the third different school — Bishop McDevitt and SCH Academy are the others — that I’ve seen attached to him. There’s a lot going on here is what I’m saying.

Scholarship chart time!

We’ll keep saying it until it’s not true: We can’t say anything for sure about the 2023 recruiting until Shaka Smart is done recruiting for 2022. With no seniors projected for 2022-23, Marquette has the same number of scholarships available from one year to the next there. I would say that the safe money is on Smart leaving at least one scholarship open going forward due to the new immediately eligible transfer rule, but that still leaves two more spots possibly in play for 2022.... and how those go will dictate what the most important path for 2023 is.

With that said, Smart does seem to have a type of player he is leaning towards — lanky and athletic — so that does lead to a certain amount of overlap on the team no matter what. On top of that, in the case of Lamothe, if you have a serious shot at a top 50 prospect on your team, then you do that and worry about the precise fit and any other problems later.