Marquis Teague Has Family Connection At UK Too

When you google Marquis Teague, the automatic finisher that google has installed tries to complete your search for you by adding "Louisville" to the end of the player's name. That's probably because Marquis, the 6'1 point guard phenom, has been rumored to be leaning toward the Cardinals and head coach Rick Pitino since just after birth. Marquis' father, Shawn, played for Pitino during Pitino's coaching days at Boston University and, just to be fair, Marquis likes the Cardinals too. "That's one of my favorite schools, one of my top schools. People are going to say that a lot, that I'm going to commit to a lot of my top schools, but [UL]' s just one of them. One of my top schools." People do say exactly that, about nearly all of the schools in Marquis' top five. His current top five is Ohio State, Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky and Wake Forest. Purdue is also receiving serious consideration. The commitment rumors usually come backed with a reason based on familial connections and with good reason; Teague has quite a few connections to each of his top schools. Wake Forest turned his brother, Jeff Teague, into a star, Indiana is right in his home state and Purdue is another school located close to his family home. Louisville we've already pointed out, but Kentucky isn't going to go out without giving a familial fight of their own. Marquis pointed out his family connection to UK, while speaking about some of the things he did on his visit to Lexington. "We went down and saw the football field, so I got to meet the football coach and some of the football players. One of my cousins plays for the football team, so I got to see him." Marquis' cousin is incoming freshman running back, Dakotah Tyler. Of course, basketball was also a subject of the visit. Marquis was able to play against many UK players, including incoming freshman John Wall, Demarcus Cousins and Eric Bledsoe. Bledsoe is someone that Marquis remembered from the AAU circuit and every young point guard in America knows John Wall. Wall was someone that Marquis was especially excited to man up against. "He was real good. That's exactly who I wanted to guard to see what I could do against him. I did pretty good against him but it was pretty hard guarding him," he explained. "He was real quick, real fast. He's about to do big things this year." Shawn Teague had previously said that Marquis really liked UK and Coach Calipari and the reason for his upcoming visit was so that Marquis could get a better idea about what UK had to offer. When asked about what he learned during his visit, Marquis said, "Before when I was thinking about UK, I didn't get to think about them as [in-depth] as a wanted to because I really hadn't been there or talked to Coach Cal that much, but after going there and talking to him, I really like his system and how he's talking about playing and how he'll play with me. Just open court basketball and that's how I like to play. On top of that, it's just a great experience, a great school. I walked around the school and it was a great environment. I'm really liking Kentucky and they're big on my list." Top guards always seem to be attracted to Calipari's propensity for getting players, especially guards, to the next level. That quality attracts Marquis as well, who said, "I think about that a lot because that's why I'm playing. I want to go to the next level and he proved that he can do that, time after time, with Tyreke and Derek and he's about to prove it again with John Wall." Outside of basketball-centered activities, Marquis was also shown the academic center and counselors who Marquis felt would do a great job of keeping his academics in order. From here, Marquis will be taking visits to Indiana and Purdue. After that, he will sit down and make a decision about where he wants to attend college. The decision is planned on being completed by the time his basketball season starts in November. The Teague's have continued to say that they will not make a commitment while on a campus, choosing instead to sit down and discuss all their options. After the UK visit, according to Marquis, they have still not had a sit down chat about the opportunity at UK but with all that they got to accomplish, UK has definitely made its best pitch and should be one of the top contenders.