Not entirely sure how much the venue of the conference tournament factors into where a kid goes to play.
My point here is that there are a lot more factors at play for each individual athlete than what conference a team plays in. Many recent big recruits for Seton Hall and Nova have talked about wanting to play in the Garden and the other NBA arenas in the conference. The Big East routinely sends 60+% of the conference to the tourney. Last year I believe DePaul went 10-1 in non conference with wins at Iowa, at Minnesota, home to Texas Tech, and then won 2 Big East games. Just shows every team in the Big East is a contender, and the night to night grind in major market cities like NY, Philly, DC, and Chicago can be more appealing to some individuals than playing Duke and UNC once a year. Different strokes for different folks, let's focus on guys that want to be Deacs and not judge those who don't.
Certainly not denigrating those who choose schools other than Wake, but I think you're a couple years late on the Big East fawning. I'm not so sure that playing DePaul, Creighton, Seton Hall and Butler is a huge prestige upgrade over Miami, Clemson or Boston College.
Marquette seems like a loser on every level (academics, coaching acumen, conference affiliation, probably playing time) but I’ve long ago given up trying to apply rational thinking to the choices of 18 year old basketball players.
Milwaukee is gross.
I disagree. There is a ton to do in Milwaukee compared to Winston and it is beautiful along the lake. I had plenty of friends and relatives go to Marquette and it a good school with a cool neighborhood around it and tons to do. Weather sucks in the winter but it is not beyond reason that someone would select Marquette before Wake.
Plus for someone outside of the ACC TV window, the ACC Network sucks. I have Comcast and Youtube TV and it is work to view games, especially on ACC Network+ which most of Wake's game end up on since the have sucked for 10 years.