With Patrick Baldwin Jr.’s commitment to Wisconsin-Milwaukee this week, one year after Makur Maker signed on to play at Howard, it feels like a banner moment for low-major basketball programs landing high-profile recruits.
Is it, though?
Probably not. The probable answer is that these are isolated incidents. That said, let’s go back down the timeline:
- Before Maker, the last time a 247Sports Composite Top 25 recruit signed with even a mid-major was in 2018, when Charles Bassey signed with Western Kentucky and Jordan Brown signed with Nevada.
- In 2017, Mitchell Robinson and Brandon McCoy signed with WKU and UNLV, respectively, but again—those are mid-majors.
- In 2015, Stephen Zimmerman signed with UNLV, and to acknowledge something, among mid-majors UNLV’s not a small name.
- Emmanuel Mudiay signing with SMU in 2014 was big, and UNLV had yet more top recruits in Rashad Vaughn and Dwayne Morgan. But still…no low-majors, and rather high mid-majors. I don’t know if I’d consider SMU a mid-major. I’m not considering Memphis or Cincinnati a mid-major for 2013 and prior.
- And that’s pretty much it. Going back to 2003, which is the earliest year for which 247Sports has those rankings, it’s just more from the schools listed. No other mid-majors, even.
In short, this is definitely unusual, and maybe we are about to see a boom in high-profile low-major recruits. Maybe mid-majors, too. It’s possible name-image-likeness rules will change things. It’s possible Maker and Baldwin will change things. We just don’t know. It’s certainly interesting, though.
