Syracuse Basketball: Elite season lands 4-star Donovan Clingan big honor

Syracuse basketball 2022 target Donovan Clingan has performed brilliantly in his junior season for Bristol Central High School in Bristol, Conn., and that has led him to receive a top recognition in the state where he suits up.

Per an article from MaxPreps national basketball editor Jordan Divens, the four-star Clingan has been named the MaxPreps Connecticut High School Basketball Player of the Year for the 2020-21 stanza.

First and foremost, a big congratulations to the 7-foot-1 center, as this award is absolutely well-deserved. According to Divens, in the most recent campaign, Clingan averaged 27.3 points, 17.2 boards, 5.8 blocks and 3.1 assists a game. Those are mind-boggling numbers.

What’s more, Clingan helped lead Bristol Central High School to “go 15-0 en route to the program’s first Central Connecticut Conference championship since 2003.”

Check these statistics out. The MaxPreps article says that in three CCC tournament encounters, Clingan tallied 36 points and 26.3 rebounds per affair. Holy smokes.

Syracuse basketball 2022 four-star prospect Donovan Clingan dominated this past season.

There’s more coolness to the Clingan story. In his squad’s 69-68 overtime victory versus East Catholic High School out of Manchester, Conn., in the CCC tournament title game, Clingan recorded 33 points, 26 rebounds, seven blocks and five assists – while hitting the contest-winning shot in the closing seconds.

Divens’ piece says that the MaxPreps Player of the Year in every state will get considered for the MaxPreps All-America team. That group is slated for release on April 13.

Clingan, a top-60 prospect in the 2022 class, is one of the premier big men throughout the country within his cycle. His first scholarship offer came from the ‘Cuse, back in August of 2019, and Clingan has said more than once that this means something to him.

More than a dozen teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big Ten Conference, the Big East Conference and other leagues have offered Clingan at this juncture.

Analysts have characterized Clingan’s recruitment as tough to gauge, and there haven’t been any predictions to date from recruiting insiders on where he will end up, at least that I’ve seen.

I’ve noted in the past that both Connecticut and Michigan are listed as “warm” under Clingan’s bio on the 247Sports Web site. That doesn’t mean he’s necessarily picking one of those two squads, although I do think that the Wolverines will be tough to beat in the recruiting sweepstakes for Clingan, who has said that he plans to announce his commitment before his senior stanza begins.