I live in Northeast Ohio, near Cleveland.
Damarius Owens and Royce Parham, Marquette’s two 2024 recruits, are currently attending and playing basketball at Western Reserve Academy, near Cleveland.
You don’t have to be great at math to see how this equation should play out. Unfortunately, life with 4 kids tends to make even the best laid plans difficult to execute. So it took until February to actually make the trip up to Hudson and see them in action.
Before we dive in some quick caveats. This was one game. Taking anything away from a high school/prep/AAU game is foolish. There are too many variables to confidently be able to say anything, good or bad, from 40 minutes of watching. So I wasn’t looking at it like a normal scout might. They both are already signed to play at Marquette. If the staff believes in them, Shaka and co. have proven the past 3 seasons they know what they are doing.
Instead I wanted to get a feel for their games. Who they might comp to and what we could possibly expect them to become if it all clicks one day.
(If you want to see full videos of their games, the school does a great job posting them here: https://www.youtube.com/@wralive5281/streams)
Damarius Owens
I had to get that caveats above out of the way because I’m about to purchase every last bit of stock I can on Damarius Owens.
When I was doing some prep and watching one of their previous games, I saw a pass I had to rewind like 5 times. And then clip and share so that I’d be able to reference again in a few years.
Because for everything I’d read about Owens, point-guard-like vision wasn’t something I’d seen to date.
He’s listed between 6’6″ and 6’8″ on recruiting sites, but looked and felt enormous in person. Even next to Parham, who himself is listed around 6’9″, Owen’s size felt more imposing.
And I think it goes back to what I saw in the clip above, and in the ones to come below. He’s listed as a forward in most recruiting sites, but he does not move like one at all. Put aside the things he can do with the basketball, he moves like a guard and was tasked with defending guards all night. And not in a, we have taller players way either. He is so agile and fluid defensively, and uses his size to just envelope the (much smaller) guards.
Now add the ball, his ability to handle, and the ease with which he directs passes around the court and I’m in awe.
I didn’t take great videos (again, you can watch the game at the above) but I’m so glad I grabbed the ones below. None of them will show up on a box score, as none were assists, but do the exact thing I was trying to get out of Wednesday night, which is get a feel for his game. Owens’ passing was revelatory.
It’s not just that they were fancy or difficult or in rhythm, it’s that he was constantly looking to create for others.
He hit his first 3 shots and had a quick 8 points. If this was a normal high school where he was the hub of the team, he’d be averaging 35+ points a night. But he was the antithesis of a stat hunter, at least last night, playing within the offense and always looking for the best play, which was more often than not a pass.
And once more, he’s a wing, at least nominally.
But every action is fluid. He has incredible control of his body even while running at full speed, as shown above. For his size, it is not something I’ve seen much of at Marquette but in the OMax/Zaide Lowery mold, knowing those two had different types of games.
He has a solid+ shot, hustled up and down on both ends, and was disruptive at the top of some full-court press early in the game.
He’s relatively highly rated at 59 on 247 Sport’s Composite, easily Shaka’s most decorated recruit in his tenure with Marquette, so it’s not like I’m claiming to have found some diamond in the rough. Simply, I never put any expectations on freshmen, lest they are bonafide 5-stars, and as of today, it would surprise me if Owens wasn’t at minimum a rotation-level player next season a la Chase Ross in 2023.
Royce Parham
Although listed at a similar height as Owens, 6’9″ or so, Parham had the look and feel of a more prototypical stretch 4 that plays the 5. A Ben Gold type if you will.
He has a great shooting touch and most likely led the game in points if I was smart enough to keep track of that sort of thing. There was a stretch in the 2nd half where he scored 8 points in 3 consecutive possessions, nailing back to back corner 3s and getting fouled in the process on the 3rd, hitting 2 of the 3 freebies.
But as is the case at this level, I found it difficult to gauge his impact as he often had a significant height advantage when he was inside, and could easily shoot and finish over defenders without as much as a contest. When he did go up against Spire’s lone big, a huge kid that had at least a few inches on anyone, he got outmuscled at times and couldn’t use his speed advantage either to get in scoring positions or box out.
This isn’t meant to sound negative, simply that on this particular night, when he led the team in scoring, his contributions appeared to me to be more about the context of the opponent (smaller and with only 2 subs available) than anything else.
But the tools for Shaka and co to work with are there. He has a good vertical and really good speed, though maybe lacking a bit in some of the quick twitch athleticism, which is why the Ben Gold comp stuck in my head.
We’ll see how he progresses over the summer, but I do think an Al Amadou-like first year may be the most likely scenario next season, as he works to build speed and muscle and adapt to the quickness of Division 1 basketball.
I am incredibly grateful to have gotten a chance to see both Royce and Damarius in action, and am so excited to see them in the Blue and Gold this fall.
Shaka Smart
One more note. As we walked into the WRA gym, there was an individual in an all-gray track suit sitting in the middle of the bleachers that looked a lot like Marquette’s head coach. And upon walking past and getting a seat not too close but well within line of vision, it sure was Shaka Smart.
He had taken the night to watch and connect with his two players, spending time both on the court directly after the game and meeting with them again coming out of the locker room (at minimum).
I’m normally quite good at not being a fanboy, even with Marquette related people, but could not pretend to do so here. We had made this a family outing and when my son, an 8-year old who’s an avid Marquette fan, finally relented and agreed to a picture with Smart, Shaka couldn’t have been nicer, not only agreeing to the picture but commenting on my son’s replica Kolek jersey.
It honestly was a bit surreal at times. No, I could not muster up the courage to even tell him that I spend 23.5 hours of the day thinking about Marquette, let alone that I’ve run a fan blog for over a decade. But being able to give my son that memory is something I know he’ll remember forever.
And one more note, it’s a tiny gym with less than 100 people in the bleachers, so Shaka stood out. You could see the students pointing and other adults whispering. It was a legitimately cool experience, and other than us, everyone let him be. But what really stood out was as he was making his way to the benches after the game, a gaggle of kids there rushed him and asked for selfies, and Shaka graciously waited and took as many as they requested.
Maybe this is commons for all coaches, I can’t say I’ve spent much time in gyms with mini celebrities, but the way he not only accepted the requests and interacted with all the kids won him a ton of new fans.
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