Syracuse Basketball: 5-star, top-20 Kamari Lands pledge truly massive

When elite 2022 wing Kamari Lands revealed via Twitter his verbal commitment to Syracuse basketball on Tuesday, I have to admit that I was pretty surprised.

Lands, who received a scholarship offer from the Orange last June, didn’t have a lot of buzz pertaining to the ‘Cuse, at least as far as articles on the Internet and comments from recruiting insiders.

Plus, a ton of Syracuse basketball fans on social media and in chat rooms didn’t have much confidence that Lands would ultimately choose the ‘Cuse.

Many of these fans felt that perhaps there wasn’t a whole lot of mutual interest these days between the Orange and the 6-foot-8 Lands, who is a junior at Prolific Prep in Napa Valley, Calif.

I, for one, held out hope that the ‘Cuse would stay in the running for Lands, who is rated five stars and a top-20 prospect overall in the 2022 class by ESPN.

Then Lands announced his collegiate destination on Twitter, and the Orange had its first commitment in the squad’s 2022 class. And this commitment is a ridiculously good one, I might add.

Syracuse basketball has its inaugural 2022 commit in stellar wing Kamari Lands.

Let’s delve into how the primary recruiting services view Lands on a national scale. According to ESPN, he is a five-star prospect and No. 19 overall around the country in the 2022 cycle, as well as No. 5 at small forward.

Both the 247Sports Composite and 247Sports have him as four stars. The 247Sports Composite places Lands at No. 36 nationally and No. 8 at his position.

Meanwhile, 247Sports arranges him at No. 33 nationally and No. 6 at small forward. Finally, Rivals.com puts Lands as four stars, No. 62 overall and No. 14 at small forward.

In reviewing a variety of recruiting Web sites, Lands held numerous other offers, from teams such as Georgetown, Marquette, Texas Tech, Xavier, DePaul and Miami (Ohio). As we noted in a column a few months back, Lands also reportedly had received interest from other high-major groups including Louisville, Indiana and Wisconsin.

Welcome to the ‘Cuse family, Kamari! I can’t say enough how big-time this commitment by Lands is for the Syracuse basketball 2022 class.