Former Rockford Christian star Marcus Hill has Bowling Green rolling into MAC tourney

Marcus Hill is really starting to prove that he can be a star at any level.

Well, almost any level. He's still a little over a year away from making himself eligible to go pro.

But so far, Hill, the former standout from Rockford Christian, has grown into a star for his teams at the high school, junior college, and now Division I levels. He's currently averaging 20.5 points for Bowling Green University, second in the entire Mid-American Conference, and he has sparked the Falcons to a spot in the MAC Tournament for the first time since 2020-21.

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"I've got my confidence built up there, and I've seen that I can do this; I can do this at this level, too," said Hill, who averaged 23 points as a senior for Rockford Christian in 2018-19. "It was crazy. For awhile there, I was so hot, I felt like I couldn't miss, you know?"

How did he get there?

First Hill, the 6-4 junior guard, earned his way onto the Bowling Green roster by dominating at the JUCO level. He only played half the season his first year at Southern Union State Community College, based out of Wadley, Alabama, but then last year he played all 31 games, and led the NJCAA in points scored with 780.

He also shot 49.7 percent from the field, and scored in double figures in every game. He averaged a team-high 26 points, which was third in the nation, and also averaged 7.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists. And last year, he had a a 12-game streak of scoring at least 20 points per game in the NJCAA.

This year, he's literally taken it to the next level.

Look out, D-I

After a strong JUCO tenure, Hill was the 32nd top prospect by JUCORecruiting.com, and he chose Bowling Green. It's paid off — for him, and Bowling Green. He hasn't played fewer than 34 minutes in a game since mid-December, 2023, and he has gone on multiple tears.

He scored 18 points in his first game at the D-I level, and 26 in his second. He had a 33-point game before the new year, and rattled off a D-I career high 35 on Jan. 2 that included eight rebounds.

Last month into this month, he rattled off a 10-game streak of scoring 20 or more.

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"I have the ability, but sometimes you can just keep putting it together, when you have streaks like that," said Hill, who has been named the MAC Player of the Week three times this season. "I got a lot of this ability from Rockford Christian, and from Coach (Isaiah) Johnson... He got the scorer to come out in me."

Although his streak of scoring more than 20 ended on Feb. 17, he scorched the nets with a 31-point game less than a week later.

Can he do it in the postseason?

Bowling Green was scheduled to host Ball State on Friday to wrap up the regular season. The MAC tourney runs from March 14-16 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Bowling Green has already sealed up at least the seventh seed.

Hill fully expects to not only be able to transfer his strong play from the regular season into the postseason, but he expects to turn it up a notch.

"I've been getting myself ready for this for a long, long time," Hill said. "It just feels great to be getting ready for the postseason, and for this tournament.

"And now, now that we're here, I just want to win, you know?"

Jay Taft is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at jtaft@rrstar.com and follow him on Twitter at @JayTaft. Sign up for the Rockford High School newsletter at rrstar.com. Jay has covered a wide variety of sports, from the Chicago Bears to youth sports, since the turn of the century at the Register Star, and for over 30 years all together.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Former Rockford Christian star Marcus Hill is lifting Bowling Green