Just because the season is about to get under way, that doesn’t mean that the Marquette men’s basketball coaching staff is taking it easy on the recruiting trails. Two days before the Golden Eagles tipped off against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, the coaches made two new scholarship offers. One is in the Class of 2021, aka high school seniors who will be in college next fall, and the other is in the Class of 2022, aka high school juniors who still need to wait another year before they can sign national letters of intent.
We will go in chronological order by recruiting class here……
247 Sports says that Kordell Charles is a 6’6”, 190 pound small forward. Kordell Charles says that he is 6’8” and 205 pounds.
6’8” 205, I appreciate it though
— Kordell Charles (@kordellcharls) November 24, 2020
I appreciate his fact checking.
247’s Composite system ranks Charles as the #146 player in the recruiting class and the #32 small forward in the Class of 2021. They also have him as the #19 player in the state of Florida, but that deserves an asterisk ever so slightly. Five of the chaps in front of Charles in that list are at IMG Academy, just like Charles is at the moment. More of a byproduct of circumstance than actual calculation of talented players in Florida, y’know?
There are just two high major schools on Charles’ offer list according to 247: USC and Illinois. A scroll through his Twitter shows offers from South Florida and Tulsa as well. That’s all kind of surprising, given that Charles entered the 247 rankings as a top 50 prospect and has been floating between 100 and 150 for most of the time since late 2018. Part of the problem, at least lately, has to be the fact that Charles broke his leg in November 2019. That will put a big ol’ dent in your recruiting attention, since schools will now sit back and wait to see how you emerge from your recovery. Charles recently told Rivals that he has been picking up interest from Iowa State, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, and perhaps most interestingly, Princeton as of late.
No matter what his recruiting attention is right now, the fact that he’s at IMG Academy says an awful lot about his ability. They’re not letting goofs hang out there, y’know?
Here’s a minute long highlight reel for Charles, which appears to be the best I can do for now. I suspect the broken leg and coronavirus combination did a number on the opportunities for the young Canadian to get out in front of some cameras over the past year.
For the record, 247 Sports lists him as Demarion Watson-Saulsberry, so when you see that name, it’s the same guy.
Anyway, 247 says he’s a 6’6”, 175 pound small forward in the Class of 2022. He’s the #107 prospect in the country, and the #26 small forward prospect. He attends Totino-Grace Grace High School in Fridley, Minnesota, and he’s the fifth best 2022 prospect in the state. The offer to Watson gives Marquette offers out to six of the top seven players in Minnesota in this recruiting class. If Totino-Grace sounds familiar to you, that’s because Marquette has an offer out to Taison Chatman, a Class of 2023 prospect, who also goes to school there. Or at least he did back last January.
In any case, Watson used to be at Minnehaha Academy, which you might remember from Marquette’s pursuit of Jalen Suggs. According to the very helpful Star Tribune Basketball Hub, Watson averaged 4.3 points in 17 games last season as a sophomore as the team went 22-3.
Watson has just four scholarship offers listed by 247 Sports, but three of them are kind of exactly the three you would expect for a kid from the Twin Cities area: Minnesota, Iowa, and Iowa State. Missouri is also in there as well as option #4. Watson’s Twitter also shows offers from Nebraska and Florida along with a very fresh as I type this offer from Vanderbilt, and fellow Big East rivals Creighton and Xavier are involved with offers as well.
Jacob Polacheck from ZagsBlog.com recently got a chance to talk to Watson, and Marquette was included in his list of five programs that are standing out the most in their effort right now. Here’s what Watson said about the Golden Eagles:
“Mostly, they’ve been saying that they need a wing. That’s what position I am. They said I would fit well in their style. Similar to Xavier, they play with a fast pace in the open floor and shoot a lot of threes. I think I could play well under their system.”
Here’s two and a half minutes of highlights.
And now, the scholarship chart.
Charles is a pretty solid fit for the 2021 recruiting class, as the Golden Eagles have already inked Kameron Jones and Stevie Mitchell to letters of intent. In terms of body type, Charles could slot right into Jamal Cain’s spot in the lineup with the Michigan native wrapping up his eligibility this season.
Watson may be a similar type of player as Charles, just a year behind him. Marquette will be looking to fill spots left open by Greg Elliott and Jose Perez when Watson will be heading to college. If Watson fits into Division 1 basketball as a guard/wing type player, then MU will definitely have a need for that type of guy at that point.
