Syracuse Basketball Recruiting: Key Updates On 2018 Prospects

A handful of recruiting nuggets here to discuss as it pertains to the Syracuse basketball squad and its promising class of 2018.

Day by day and week by week, an abundance of recruiting activity has unfolded as it pertains to the Syracuse basketball program.

Four-star guard Jalen Carey, who recently included the Orange in his final six, has scheduled four official visits, per a Rivals.com article. Carey, down to Connecticut, the ‘Cuse, Kansas, Miami, Rutgers and Villanova, will travel to Central New York on Sept. 8, says Rivals.com.

Carey, who also took an unofficial visit to SU in June, attends the Immaculate Conception High School in Montclair, N.J. He is regarded as a consensus top-75 prospect by the four main recruiting Web sites.

For the moment, the 247Sports Crystal Ball pegs Syracuse as the front-runner for Carey. However, we all know that this means virtually nothing. See Quade Green. Or Jordan Tucker. Or … you get my drift.

Interestingly enough, four-star forward Darius Bazley, who has already pledged to don an Orange

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uniform beginning with the 2018-19 campaign, will have an official visit to the ‘Cuse on Sept. 8-9, according to Syracuse.com.

So, both Bazley and Carey, who is a high priority for head coach Jim Boeheim and his staff, will reside on the SU campus during the same weekend. Coincidence? I venture absolutely not.

Let’s hope that Bazley, who has shot up to No. 13 nationally via Scout.com and is from Princeton High School in Cincinnati, will get in Carey’s ear about joining him on the Hill. Those two studs would make one heck of a 2018 class.

JB & Co. definitely want another talented guard to fill out the 2018-19 roster. Should Carey head elsewhere, four-star guard Eric Ayala is still an option.

Ayala, who for months has weighed a move to the 2017 class, will stay in the following year’s class, reports Zagsblog.

He’s generally rated as one of the top 75-100 guys in the 2018 class and played at the Putnam Science Academy in Putnam, Conn., a season ago.

Zagsblog says that Ayala plans to do a post-grad stint at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., this upcoming stanza. Ayala told Zagsblog that he’s considering nine schools, including the ‘Cuse, as well as others such as Arizona, Georgetown (what?), Indiana, Maryland, Miami and Oregon.

As we’ve noted on numerous occasions of late, JB and his assistants have one scholarship available for their 2018 class, assuming no one jumps ship after the 2017-18 term.

Bazley is a done deal. So apparently is three-star guard Buddy Boeheim, the son of Jim Boeheim, although his spot may not count toward the scholarship limit.

Ayala and Carey are in the mix.

So are power forwards Dimon Carrigan and Nate Roberts, as well as guard Jeenathan Williams Jr. They are all slotted as either three or four stars. But, we can say bye-bye to five-star power forward Simisola Shittu , who on Monday revealed his top 10 on Twitter. The Orange, unfortunately, failed to make the cut.

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From what I’ve read online in recent months, I got the sense that perhaps SU coaches had backed off courting Shittu   a bit, or maybe he shied away from them, although I don’t pretend to have any inside information on that.

Regardless, when also keeping in mind that East Carolina transfer Elijah Hughes is eligible to play starting in 2018-19, the future seems fairly juicy for our beloved ‘Cuse hoops contingent!

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