Marquis Clark was done taking visits, having cancelled two previously scheduled trips, when Tennessee assistant coach Amorrow Morgan reached out. Clark and his family’s plans changed. After scheduling a visit last Monday, the three-star point guard arrived in Knoxville Thursday night and committed to Tennessee basketball while on his weekend visit.
“It’s always been a dream to play at a big school like this,” Clark told RTI Wednesday. “When they gave me the opportunity. I couldn’t say no. I had to take it.”
Once on his visit, Clark quickly bought in to Tennessee’s culture and liked everything else that came with the program besides it just being a big name SEC school.
Near the top of that list was head coach Rick Barnes and his demeanor, taking things extremely seriously on the court but taking very little seriously off of it.
“Coach Barnes was just being himself and keeping it real,” Clark said. “He’s two different people on the court and off the court. But I like that about him. He’ll play around and joke around off the court, have fun. But when he get on that court, there ain’t no play time. He’s all business and that’s what I need from a coach as a player.”
While Barnes helped seal the deal for Clark. Morgan laid the groundwork. Tennessee’s first-year assistant coach has known Clark since the point guard was a freshman at Whitney Young High School in Chicago and Morgan was an assistant coach at Loyola Chicago.
More From RTI: SEC Media Day Notebook — The Five Best Quotes From Lady Vols Basketball
Morgan continued recruiting Clark when he went to Cal and stayed in touch once he got to Tennessee before upping the interest the last few weeks.
“He was at Loyola my freshman year and he came up here and always told me he was going to keep his eye out on me,” Clark said. “Then he offered me at Cal. Then he left there and always said ‘we’re going to stay in touch’ and he kept his word and offered me at Tennessee.”
Clark ranks as a three-star recruit and the No. 252 player in the country according to the 247sports composite rankings. The Chicago native previously visited Iona, Southern Illinois, Western Michigan and Purdue-Fort Wayne before taking the trip to Tennessee.
Tennessee has had success recruiting overlooked point guards in recent years, most notably with Zakai Zeigler but also with Troy Henderson in the last cycle. But while both Zeigler and Henderson were undersized guards, Clark has a big 6-foot-2, 195-pound frame with a 6-foot-7 wingspan— something Tennessee likes about him.
“He likes my size,” Clark said of Barnes. “That I’m a tough guard that likes to get down hill and can knock down the three ball and facilitate. Get my teammates involved. Then we talked about how they want me to start picking up 94 feet to get my defense better. That’s what I’ve been working on.”
Clark sees Tennessee as a high level opportunity at one of the SEC’s best programs while also feeling like he will have the opportunity to earn early playing time.
“I feel like if I do what I have to do, I’m going to get the looks that I want and I need,” Clark said. “I just got to go in and do what I’m supposed to do as a freshman.”
