Aizahanique Mayo Commits To Marquette Women’s Basketball

We’re getting closer and closer to the fall signing period for the Class of 2022, and as such, we’re going to see more and more commitments popping up all over the place. On Tuesday, it was Marquette women’s basketball’s turn to add a commitment. At a ceremony at her high school, Aizahanique Mayo announced that she was committing to play for Megan Duffy and the Golden Eagles. From the hat selection in front of her, it would appear that Mayo selected Marquette over the University of Houston.

That tweet is from Scott Ericson of the Connecticut Post, and his story on Mayo’s commitment is already live on their website. That is very helpful in terms of providing some context for what the Golden Eagles are getting in the 5’9” guard from Connecticut.

How about some stats from last year?

Mayo led the Lancers last season as a junior averaging 20 points, 7 assists and 6 rebounds while being named to the GameTimeCT All-State First Team for the second-straight season.

How about a comment from former UConn player Maria Conlon, who is also her coach at Notre Dame High School?

“My favorite thing about her is how humble she is. Outside of that, her teammates also love her as you can see by how excited they are about today,” Conlon said. “She’s a very likable kid. That is because of how unselfish she is when she’s on the court. Off the court, she’s always trying to help and mentor people. She’s the type of kid who is always trying to pick you up off the court. Those attributes always translate into being successful at any level.”

How about some Big East talk from Conlon?

“I know she’s going to do great things at Marquette. It’s an amazing for for her,” Conlon said. “Selfishly I love it because she’s going to be playing in the Big East and she’ll play locally so we will be able to watch her play. She will get to play against my alma mater which is, also selfishly, great. She’s going to do great things and we are all so proud and excited for her.”

How about some accolades for Mayo?

In her time at Notre Dame, she is a two-time SWC Champion, 2021 SWC Tournament MVP; two-time CHSCA All-State; three-time All-SWC First Team; ranked in top 10 players in New England for 2022 and a two-time Finalist for State Gatorade Player of the Year.

Neat, huh?

The story in the CT Post mentions that Mayo was getting recruiting interest from “over 30 schools,” which is kind of a big deal. When Marquette made their offer to Mayo, I couldn’t find much in the way of other schools offering, which was kind of shocking since she was named the Connecticut Player of the Year for 2020-21 by Max Preps in the spring. The other end of “over 30 schools” is that Marquette was late to the party. Duffy and her staff didn’t make the offer official until late July of this year, nearly into August. It’s only been about seven weeks since that happened, and yet Marquette still stood head and shoulders above everyone else at the end of the day for Mayo.

And now, the new scholarship chart.

Mayo joins Emily La Chapell and Charia Smith in Megan Duffy’s 2022 recruiting class. La Chapell is clearly the guiding light of the class at the moment, as ESPN has her ranked at #80 in the country. We’ll have to wait and see how 2021-22 goes for the Golden Eagles, but based on what we saw last season, it seems reasonable to wonder how much the 2022 trio will be expected to contribute right out of the gate. It’s possible that Duffy was focusing on letting her freshmen last year get their feet wet more than anything else, but with Lauren Van Kleunen finishing out her career with a COVID bonus season and Chloe Marotta possibly being done after this coming season as well, there’s not a lot of known quantities on that 2022-23 roster right now.

It’s a long time between now and then, of course. Duffy also has two more 2022 scholarship available to her if she’s interested in using them, although one would have to be used for Chloe Marotta if she elects to return for her bonus year of eligibility.

(h/t @MarkKahnWI)