Class Of 2024 Forward Damarius Owens Commits To Marquette

About a week ago, Joe Tipton from On3.com tweeted that Damarius Owens, a Class of 2024 forward, had cut his recruiting list to three schools: Syracuse, Virginia Tech, and of course, because we’re talking about it, Marquette. However, part of the story was that Owens was going to announce his decision during the month of February, and since we were already a week in, I just sat back and waited for announcement day to roll up.

That day was today, and yes, Damarius Owens is now Shaka Smart’s first commitment for the Class of 2024.

Here’s what Owens told 247 Sports about Marquette before he made his announcement:

“Marquette is a great University filled with great people. While I was on my visit, I got to see the team and meet the whole staff in person after meeting them all in a zoom call. They showed me around campus and I got to see and meet many new people. Shaka [Smart] is a great coach and he is filled with energy and it runs through the whole staff! It rubs off on you which is great. The team also had great energy no matter if they were on the bench, practicing, shooting around wherever they were they were connected and it gives off a great vibe. I got the opportunity to meet Dwyane Wade which was a crazy experience and I also got to watch my first NBA game in person. Marquette’s play style is a great fit for me, they play free and very unselfish and I can see myself within their system.”

247 Sports lists Owens as a 6’8”, 190 pound small forward. He attends Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, which is about halfway between Cleveland and Akron, but he hails from Rochester, New York, and plays on the club circuit with City Rocks. The 247 Sports Composite rates Owens as a three-star prospect and ranks him at #149 in the country at the moment. Internally, 247 likes him more than that, keeping him as a three-star guy but ranking him at #112. Rivals has a page for him, but no ratings or rankings, which probably helps explain the 247 Composite’s feelings about Owens. ESPN says Owens is a four-star prospect, ranking him #33 amongst power forwards and #3 in the state of Ohio. On3 doesn’t give Owens a national ranking, but they do rate him as a three-star prospect and rank him #34 amongst power forwards. Their Consensus ranking system has Owens at #145 in the country while still marking him as a three-star guy.

I can’t seem to track anything down that tells us what kind of stats that Owens is putting up for Western Reserve this season, or what he did for City Rocks last summer on the EYBL circuit. If you can find it, drop it in the comments. This isn’t that big of a deal given Shaka Smart’s overall recruiting philosophy. If you can play in the system that Smart is using, it doesn’t really matter what your high school or AAU stats are. I did, however, find this 60 second long highlight reel that was posted right at the end of December 2022.

Scholarship chart time, and since Owens is the first commit for 2024, that means we have a brand new column!

Until we get clarity on exactly what’s going to happen with the one over scholarship situation for the 2023-24 team, we can’t really get a handle on how Owens fits into the entire recruiting picture. It’s obvious that Shaka Smart values tall and athletic forward types, so Owens definitely fits the bill there.