Marquette Gets Top-5 Recruit

[GoldenWarrior11]

Henry Ellenson committed to Marquette this morning, picking the Golden Eagles over Kentucky and Michigan State.

He's currently number 4 overall in the country in ESPN's rankings.

HUGE get for Wojo and Marquette. Even bigger get for the Big East. The conference can STILL recruit.

[billyjack]

Congrats MU...! Great news...!

Notable that his last 3 finalists were Marquette, Michigan State and Kentucky.

[aughnanure]

Shocking, thought there was no way he wasn't going to Kentucky's Midnight Madness! This is just huge.


http://espn.go.com/college-sports/recru ... -marquette

[Jays26]

Congrats!!!! Way to go!

[PhillyPirate]

Great get for Marquette and the confrence. The Big East is gonna have a lot of star power the next few years. Ellenson, Brunson, Whitehead, Copeland, Jordan and Dunn just to name the highest ranked guys. If a few of them turn out to be lottery picks it will show recruits that the Big East can still get kids to the league

[HoosierPal]

Isn't his brother on the team already?

[notkirkcameron]

Isn't his brother on the team already?

Yes.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketb ... -marquette

"Yes, Marquette enrolled Henry Ellenson's brother, Wally Ellenson, in July, and that's worth mentioning, if only because some of you have already mentioned it on Twitter. So, in the spirit of honesty, I'll say this: Wally Ellenson is a transfer from Minnesota better equipped to contribute at the so-called mid-major level than at a Big East program, and it would be naive to suggest Wojciechowski didn't take that commitment with this commitment in mind.

Clearly, the two things are connected.

We don't have to lie to each other about it.

But anybody using Wally Ellenson's enrollment to discount Henry Ellenson's commitment is wildly missing the point, because all Wally Ellenson's enrollment shows me is that Wojciechowski is smart enough to know what he needs to do to secure a program-changing recruit. You get 13 scholarships in basketball, and you really only need eight or nine talented players to compete at the highest level.

So why not spend a scholarship on an inferior prospect to help secure a top-10 recruit?

Wojciechowski shouldn't be criticized for that.

He should be applauded.

And he'll never regret that decision, I promise you."

[GumbyDamnit!]

EXCELLENT NEWS! Congrats to Marquette!

I would like those people...cough....cough...Stever....cough... to admit that the Big East will do just fine with recruiting moving forward. I recall many a debate over the impending doom of potential recruits not coming to the BE any longer. Well 2014 was a great year. 2015 is similar. 2016 taking shape. Cue the next argument that "2017 is the real year we have to look towards to see if we can recruit."

Great get Wojo.

[MUPanther]

I thought the haters said the Big East is dead.

[notkirkcameron]

EXCELLENT NEWS! Congrats to Marquette!

I would like those people...cough....cough...Stever....cough... to admit that the Big East will do just fine with recruiting moving forward. I recall many a debate over the impending doom of potential recruits not coming to the BE any longer. Well 2014 was a great year. 2015 is similar. 2016 taking shape. Cue the next argument that "2017 is the real year we have to look towards to see if we can recruit."

Great get Wojo.

Well, yes and no. Both sides of that coin are right it seems. The Big East continues to attract recruits, but so do other conferences. Here's 24/7's Top 50 2015 recruiting classes broken out by conference.

9- Big Ten (#6 Ohio State, #7 Illinois, #10 Michigan State, #21 Nebraska, #24 Penn State, #27 Wisconsin, #28 Minnesota, #38 Rutgers, #50 Iowa)
8- Pac-12 (#1 Arizona, #8 Washington, #13 Oregon State, #17 UCLA, #19 USC, #26 Oregon, #29 Stanford, #35 Arizona State)
8- SEC (#9 Auburn, #11 Florida, #15 Texas A&M, #33 Vanderbilt, #36 Mississippi State, #37 Ole Miss, #43 Alabama, #45 LSU)
7- ACC- (#2 Louisville, #3 Florida State, #5 Syracuse, #12 Duke, #20 Wake Forest, #31 Notre Dame, #41 Boston College)
6- Big 12- (#23 Baylor, #30 West Virginia, #40 Oklahoma, #47 Oklahoma State, #48 Kansas State, #49 Texas)
5- Big East (#4 Marquette, #16 Villanova, #22 Georgetown, #34 Providence, #42 Creighton)
4- American (#14 Memphis, #18 UConn, #32 Temple, #44 Cincinnati)
3- Other mid-majors (#25 San Diego State, #39 UTEP, #46 New Mexico)

Admittedly, this is an imperfect science. The Big East has 5 of its ten teams (50%) in the Top 50, while the ACC has 7 of 15 (47%). The Big 12 has 6, but three are worse than Creighton's #42 class. The moral of the story is, in the debate over whether the Big East is just golden, or a toxic wasteland, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.