Syracuse Basketball: ACC, Big East, Big Ten battle for Donovan Clingan

Syracuse basketball 2022 four-star target Donovan Clingan could decide in about a year.

Syracuse basketball offered a scholarship to 2022 four-star center Donovan Clingan back in August of 2019, one of the first high-major teams to offer the talented 7-foot-1 prospect.

Fast-forward to the present, and Clingan now boasts 17 Division I offers, according to a review of his bios on various recruiting Web sites. His most recent offer is from Big Ten Conference member Ohio State.

The Buckeyes, by the way, secured a commitment a little more than a week ago from another Orange target in the 2022 class, four-star shooting guard Roddy Gayle Jr. Gayle, a junior out of Lewiston-Porter High School in Youngstown, N.Y., had the ‘Cuse in his final six before picking Ohio State.

Clingan is a junior at Bristol Central High School in Bristol, Conn., and runs on the AAU circuit with the Boston-based Team Spartans. One of his AAU teammates is 2023 wing Gavin Griffiths, who recently landed his own offer from Syracuse basketball.

Syracuse basketball faces extremely stiff competition in the recruiting bout over 2022 four-star Donovan Clingan.

Besides the Orange and the Buckeyes, Clingan’s other offers are from Iona, Wake Forest, South Carolina, Michigan State, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Yale, Rutgers, Notre Dame, Boston College, Iowa, Georgetown, Providence, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

By my count, 13 of those 17 offers doled out to Clingan are spread among Atlantic Coast Conference, Big East Conference and Big Ten groups.

The primary recruiting services rank him between No. 44 and No. 57 overall within the 2022 cycle. In recently updated ratings from 247Sports, Clingan fell 17 positions to No. 57 across the country.

Joe Morelli, a writer for GameTimeCT, a Web site that covers Connecticut high-school sports, said in an article that Clingan “may make a decision after his AAU season next summer.”

Clingan told GameTimeCT, “It’s going to be hard when I do decide, maybe a year from now or a little less than that.”

He hasn’t put out any sort of list, and I haven’t read any articles lately that speak to him possibly trimming his number of contenders anytime soon.

Recruiting analysts haven’t pegged a favorite or favorites for Clingan, and the fact that Syracuse basketball coaches got in early with him is encouraging. As a sophomore a stanza ago, Clingan averaged 24.8 points, 17.2 rebounds and 6.4 blocks per contest for Bristol Central High School.