JJ Barnes Commits To Marquette WBB

The Wisconsin native has been a target for the Golden Eagles longer than you realize….

New head coach Cara Consuegra continues to work on the future of Marquette women’s basketball, and in this particular case, she dug a little bit into the past. On Thursday, Wisconsin Playground Elite announced that JJ Barnes, a guard in the Class of 2025, has committed to Marquette women’s basketball!

I wonder if this is slightly dated news, though. There’s this post from the official team Twitter 4 days earlier.

That one has quote tweets from two of the assistant coaches, so it certainly seems like it may have been indicating Barnes’ commitment.

In any case, Barnes’ history with Marquette goes back a little bit. It would seem that Consuegra, presumably with the help of Khadijah Rushdan who is holding over from the previous administration, maintained a relationship between Barnes and the MU women’s basketball team that started back in 2021. No, that’s not a joke, I’ve got the blog post to prove that Megan Duffy offered JJ Barnes a scholarship in June of 2021, back before she started high school.

Prep Girls Hoops is a help here, confirming PGE’s note that Barnes is a 5’8” guard. They list her as a combo guard, so we’ll have to see how that plays out once she gets to campus. Prep Girls Hoops also shows Barnes — listed as JJ Glass-Barnes, by the way — as the #5 prospect in the state for the Class of 2025.

WisSports.net helps us out with three seasons worth of stats for Barnes at Prairie School in Racine. She’s been remarkably consistent the entire time, averaging somewhere between 20 and 21 points per game all three years of high school so far, and junior year was her worst rebounding campaign at “only” 7.3 per game. Barnes has also averaged somewhere in the 3’s for assists during her prep career along with 2’s for steals. The only spot where we can see improvement in her game is her shooting. Barnes made 21 three-pointers in her first two seasons of high school basketball and then 22 in junior year alone. Yes, she started taking a few more along the way, and her shooting percentage has gone up every single season, getting to 33.8% in 2023-24.

2023-24 was a peak year for Prairie as a team as well. In Barnes’ three seasons, they had their season ended in the WIAA Division 4 Sectional Semifinal, then the Sectional Final, and then this past year, in the State Semifinal. Both of the last two seasons ended in a loss to Laconia, so I imagine we know what Barnes has in the back of her mind as a goal for 2024-25. Those two losses are a notable part of only seven losses for Barnes and Prairie School.

Scouting report? Sure, why not.

It’s old, but if you sort through 13 minutes of full game highlights from November 2021, you can watch Barnes put up 20 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 steals…….. in 17 minutes of game play. Keep an eye on #24 in white and remember: That’s Barnes as a freshman.

And now, the brand new scholarship chart!

Okay, so the future of Marquette women’s hoops under the direction of Cara Consuegra is starting to take shape. Barnes is the second Class of 2025 commitment for Marquette after Kameron Herring made her pledge in late August, and the third high school prospect commitment for Conseugra along with Se’Crette Carter joining up for 2026. We’re going to need to see Marquette in action in 2024-25 before we can start saying how Barnes can make an impact right away, as there’s way too many new faces in the program this coming year. With that said, Barnes is one of just seven projected players on the roster in 2026-27, so at least for now, she’s probably going to have to be a big contributor as a sophomore at the very least.