Charia Smith Commits To Marquette

And so, we have a new Golden Eagle.

Marquette women’s basketball assistant coach Kelly Komara hinted that there was something going down on Sunday night when she tweeted the following:

At the time, there wasn’t anything turning up in the Twitter searches about a new commitment, which is definitely what she seems to be implying. Coach Komara helped us out on Monday afternoon when she retweeted Charia Smith, a 6’1” forward out of Ohio, and her announcement that she has committed to play for Megan Duffy and the Golden Eagles.

Let’s go ahead and repost her actual statement in the tweet for posterity:

I’m blessed to announce that I’ve verbally committed to Marquette University to continue my academic and athletic career!! First and foremost, give glory to God because without Him none of this would be possible. Thank you to my parents for being my anchors through this journey. To my brothers and friends who have been some of my biggest supporters. Thank you to Coach JB and the rest of the all Ohio Family for building me up and always being there for me!! And lastly thank you Coach Duffy, Coach Justine, Coach Kelly, and Coach Taylor for this special opportunity and believing in what I can do and bring to the team!!!! #GoGoldenEagles

I have to say, I’m always fascinated by how prospects refer to the coaches involved. When I see Smith use last names for Megan Duffy and Tasha Taylor but first names for Justine Raterman and Kelly Komara, I’m very curious about the conversations that the coaches have with the players that lead one way or another on this type of thing.

ANYWAY

Marquette offered Smith a scholarship just about a month ago. We wrote about it in an article dated on August 3rd, but Smith tweeted about her offer on July 26th. I think it’s safe to say that MU’s relationship with Smith goes back long before the offer was made, because that’s how these things usually go. It’s clear that Smith and her family made some sort of visit to Marquette from her announcement tweet, as MU isn’t really in the business of mailing out MU uniforms and background banners for people to to use for their announcement banners, but I’m not clear when exactly this visit happened.

As it stands, since it’s only been a month since I last tried to track down information on Smith, I don’t have much more than what was in her offer article. She’s 6’1”, maybe 6’2”, depending on who you want to listen to, and she averaged 12.0 points per game for Westerville North High School as a junior this past season. That got her Third Team All-Central District honors, which is pretty good stuff.

I don’t know what may or may not have transpired since Marquette’s offer came in, but Smith didn’t tweet about many other offers since Duffy made hers official. We mentioned her most recent offer that she tweeted about from Austin Peay along with visits that Smith made to Western Michigan, Buffalo, and Ohio State.

And now, the scholarship table!

With Smith joining Emily La Chapell in MU’s 2022 recruiting class, that means Megan Duffy has occupied two of the three scholarships that are currently sitting open. That still leaves Duffy and her staff the possibility of adding three more women to the 2022-23 roster, although one of those spots could possibly end up going to Chloe Marotta. She has an extra season of eligibility to use if she wants it, but she will count as a scholarship spot if she takes it. Still, that’s at least two more spots available and with four projected seniors for the 2022-23 team, it would be in MU’s interest, I think, to have new bodies coming in. Then again, with 12 women already projected for the roster and Marotta a possibility, how many people do you really need on a basketball roster?