On Sunday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an article talking about five-star premier recruit Jalen Johnson out of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. The article focused on Wisconsin’s effort to get Johnson with the likes of Florida, Duke, North Carolina, Arizona all coming after him. The writer conveniently leaves out Marquette in the equation. Not sure if I blame him, but it’s a weird way to do it even as a Badgers beat writer especially since Marquette beat Wisconsin out for Joey Hauser, Henry Ellenson and prior to that, Wes Matthews and Vander Blue. Marquette is looking at Johnson just like their Madison counterparts. It’s odd that they would be left out of the conversation here. Marquette has done more to recruit high-profile Wisconsin high schoolers than Wisconsin in the past decade.

Johnson is in Wisconsin’s backyard and in a way, they need to land him. Wisconsin struck out how many times with these type of recruits? The article points out how this is Wisconsin’s top priority, and while that’s great, you have to figure out the best way to reach the recruit. Wisconsin has been in the mix countless times and been at the doorstep yet they’ve never been able to bring it home. Wisconsin believed Tyler would become that player, and he ended up spurning them last-minute for Kentucky. Sure, there are reasons for why these things happen. Herro had all sorts of drama, and a guy like Diamond Stone had Under Armour drop a bag to get him to Maryland.

After Johnson, Patrick Baldwin Jr is after him, and he might be better than Johnson. Experts ranked Baldwin Jr. number one in his class overall. Wisconsin and Marquette are in the mix for him as well as the other teams mentioned above. Baldwin Jr is a little different considering he’s in the Southeastern Wisconsin and his dad is the head coach at Milwaukee. Still, these are two recruiting battles to watch in the coming years. And we’ll see if Wisconsin or Marquette can land either of these recruits.

Charlie.