Syracuse Basketball Recruiting: Cole Swider Selects Villanova
By Neil Adler
The Syracuse basketball team lost out in the recruiting battle for 2018 four-star prospect Cole Swider, who will attend Villanova.
Another prized recruit of the SU hoops squad has squeezed the Orange. Cole Swider, a four-star forward in the 2018 class, revealed on Friday afternoon that he will suit up for head coach Jay Wright and Villanova, which captured the national title two terms ago. It marks yet another recruit Syracuse Basketball and Jim Boeheim has missed out this year.
The 6’7 Swider, out of the St. Andrew’s School in Barrington, RI, took an official visit to the Central New York campus from June 18-20 after trimming his list to Duke, Syracuse, Xavier and the eventual winning outfit, the Wildcats. In Swider, Villanova has landed a stud who is rated 48th overall by ESPN.com, 69th at Scout.com and 76th from 247Sports.
Honestly, this stinks. I’m not terribly surprised, however, that he didn’t pick the ‘Cuse. A bunch of recruiting analysts pegged the Blue Devils as the front-runners. Swider, in the end, decided on ‘Nova.
Can you blame him? Wright’s crew has crushed it in the Big East over the past several stanzas, while amassing stellar regular-season marks, No. 1 or No. 2 seeds in the Big Dance, and knocking off North Carolina at the buzzer in the 2016 championship contest. Swider, beginning in the 2018-19 campaign, will join the Wildcats along with four-star shooting guard Brandon Slater, another former SU target.
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At this point, we’ve documented ad nauseam how head coach Jim Boeheim and his staff in recent months have swung and missed on top-flight talents, both in the 2017 and 2018 classes. Despite continued complaints from some Syracuse faithful regarding this unfortunate pattern, I still believe it’s better when Boeheim & Co. are among the finalists for a highly ranked prospect. The elite players are taking our program seriously. It just hurts a bit more when they head elsewhere.
Quade Green did it. The same goes for Jordan Tucker. And, my friends, this will happen again, and again. That’s the brutal nature of the recruiting world. We’re typically competing with powerhouse schools such as Arizona, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and Villanova.
When that is the case, I’m afraid you’re likely to get beat more often than not. But at least we’re in the conversation. Once that stops transpiring, then fans should really start to worry. Now that we must move on from Swider, I’ll take solace in that JB has offers on the table to a bevy of 2018 class members.
They include Darius Bazley, a four-star forward who apparently is on an unofficial visit to the ‘Cuse on Friday, according to reports by Scout.com and other media outlets. Then there’s four-star guard Jalen Carey, who recently held an unofficial visit to Central New York.
Next: Syracuse Basketball Recruiting: Hameir Wright Chooses Hop And The Huskies
Finally, don’t forget about four-star point guard Eric Ayala, who expects to decide soon if he will reclassify to 2017. Hopefully he doesn’t, as the Orange are out of scholarships for this coming fall. Swider’s announcement stings, but hopefully Syracuse will nab a few other targets in the near future!