Sir Mohammed Puts Marquette In His Current Top 6

As we wind our way towards April, we start leaning closer and closer to recruiting season for college hoops. With that in mind, it wasn’t terribly surprising to see a Class of 2024 prospect get out in front of the spring grassroots events with a list of his top six options. That’s what Sir Mohammed did on March 20th, and yes, he included YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles on his list. He also included Oklahoma, Stanford, Villanova, and Virginia Tech on the list. Penn State also made the list, but that was before head coach Micah Shrewsberry left Happy Valley to become the new head coach at Notre Dame.

But more important than that is this follow up from Mohammed.

Think of it as more of a “These are my six biggest recruiters right now” as opposed to “I prefer these six programs” and I think you’re on the right track with what Mohammed has actually announced here.

247 Sports currently lists Mohammed as a 6’6”, 200 pound small forward in the Class of 2024. He attends Myers Park High School in Charlotte, North Carolina. 247’s Composite system rates Mohammed as a four-star prospect in his class and ranks him at #54 in the country right now. That makes him the #17 small forward prospect and, believe it or not at #54 in the country, the #8 prospect in the state of North Carolina.

247 reported back in January that Marquette had only recently gotten deeply involved in recruiting him — there was an offer on January 12th — so that’s a pretty good sign for Shaka Smart that he’s gone shooting up the interest list that quickly.

On 3 got a chance to talk to Mohammed about his list, and here’s what the son of 18 year NBA veteran Nazr Mohammed had to say about Marquette:

“The culture they are building and Coach (Shaka) Smart and his staff there are great. They’ve been supporting me a lot throughout this whole school season.”

I’m fascinated most by the phrasing of “supporting me” in that explanation. That would seem to lend itself towards Smart’s idea that everything starts from relationships, and growth can only begin after the foundational relationship is in place.

Here’s a two minute clip of Mohammed in one game from back in January of this year. You’re watching #14 in black and green.

Onwards to the scholarship chart!

As mentioned, Mohammed is a Class of 2024 prospect. Following the commitment of Damarius Owens in mid-February, Marquette currently projects to have just one scholarship spot available by the time that Mohammed would be enrolling. However, as you can see from the header on 2023-24, Marquette still projects as one player over the scholarship limit of 13 for that year. Until that detail works itself out, we can’t say for certain how Mohammed would fit into where Marquette is going at that point. It’s also worth noting that unless some very big things happen between now and then, Marquette is not going to have space for Oso Ighodaro, Tyler Kolek, and Olivier-Maxence Prosper to all stick around in Milwaukee for their COVID bonus years of eligibility. I can’t say that I have ever expected them to stick around for that season, but the way recruiting for 2024 is going, it certainly looks like that’s not the plan anyway.

Or maybe lots of things happen, who can say??