Marquette Offers A Scholarship To JJ Andrews

The shooting guard from Arkansas looks like he’ll be an elite recruit in the Class of 2026.

Generally speaking, there’s been a trend for Shaka Smart’s recruiting since he became the head coach for Marquette men’s basketball. It has seemed that Smart has been focused on recruiting the kind of high school player that he knows he can develop into a star over four years. This was something he talked about with athletic director Bill Scholl in the hiring process, and it is a departure from what miiiiiiiiight have kind of been forced on him at Texas.

All of this means it’s a little bit interesting that the Golden Eagles have offered a scholarship to JJ Andrews.

JJ Andrews is listed as a 6’6”, 220 pound shooting guard in the Class of 2026 by 247 Sports. Right there, that’s the kind of physical size that says “is ready to contribute on Day 1 in Division 1.” That’s bigger than Chase Ross by an inch and 15 pounds, just to give you an approximation. With that in mind, you can’t be surprised to find out that Andrews is currently sitting at #18 in the country in 247’s Composite rankings. He’s the #5 shooting guard in 2026 and, to the surprise of no one, the top player in the state of Arkansas for that recruiting class.

It’s a long trip between here and November 2025 when Andrews might sign a letter of intent to play at Marquette, so who knows if we’ll ever hear Shaka Smart talk about his recruiting process here. Is this “Andrews is such a good dude off the court, of course we want him here” or is this “now that my culture is planted firmly at Marquette and we’re established as winning, we can shoot for the stars a bit” or is it something completely different for Smart? It’s not a full shift in recruiting, merely an interesting note.

There’s at least a little evidence that Shaka Smart is interested in Andrews as an intelligent young man on top of his basketball skills. Two days after posting about his offer from MU, Andrews added this tweet to talk about his recruiting.

You don’t often see graphics like this talk about “Committable Offers” and I’m curious about how Andrews and his family define this and how they approach it with teams. How are they getting answers from teams about whether or not JJ could commit right this second on the offer, and if they don’t get a positive response there, are those just qualified as interests? Am I reading too much into this here and this is just an “offers” and “phone calls” list?

In any case, you can see that Marquette is the only Big East school with an offer for Andrews since the June 15th start of contact with 2026 prospects, while NC State is the only other non-SEC school with an offer. Remember: Oklahoma joined Missouri, LSU, and Ole Miss in the SEC as of July 1st of this year.

Getting Andrews to leave Arkansas at all might be an accomplishment, depending on how he and his family feel about things. His father, Shawn, played offensive line for the Razorbacks and then played for seven seasons in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants after being selected #16 overall by Philly. He’s already in the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame after being a two-time All-American and a two-time Pro Bowler. Oh, and mom Jennette played basketball at Western Carolina, too. What a shocker that JJ’s a good athlete, huh?

Andrews won a state championship with Little Rock Christian Academy this past spring, wrapping up a 28-7 season with a 71-56 victory. That was the second straight state title for LRCA, and Andrews had 19 points, eight rebounds, and three assists in the title game to earn MVP honors. The commentary from Andrews in that article I linked to there definitely makes Andrews look like a humble young man even as his national profile takes off. I would imagine that’s the kind of thing that happens when both of your parents played Division 1 athletics and know how long the road between now and that first day of college can be.

Here’s a six minute video feature on Andrews that includes highlights and an interview, but it is from July 2023.

If you want more highlight stuff, may I point you towards this YouTube page, which is stocked up and also appears to be run by Andrews himself?

Let’s wrap up with the Marquette scholarship chart.

I mentioned Chase Ross earlier as a physical comparison for JJ Andrews, and hey, would you look at that: Andrews is projected to join the college ranks at exactly the moment where Marquette is projected to lose Ross at the end of his eligibility. What are the chanc