Syracuse Basketball: 4-star guard targets explode onto scene in rankings

Rivals.com has published an update of its national rankings for the 2023 class, and two Syracuse basketball prospects have entered these ratings in a big-time way.

Those two Orange sophomore targets, both guards, are Aden Holloway and Blue Cain. In the Rivals.com update, where it ranks the top-100 players in this cycle, the 6-foot-1 Holloway and the 6-foot-4 Cain are both listed as four stars.

Holloway is placed at No. 56 nationally, while Cain is No. 81. Multiple recruiting analysts had said of late that they deemed Holloway a top-50 prospect, and Cain a top-100 player.

The 247Sports recruiting service currently has Holloway at No. 50 overall and No. 10 at point guard in the 2023 class. Cain is presently unranked by 247Sports, but that should change when this recruiting service refreshes its national ratings for the 2023 cycle.

Two Syracuse basketball guard prospects have soared into the 2023 rankings.

As we noted in a recent column, point guard Holloway has elected to transfer from the Covenant Day School in Matthews, N.C., to the La Lumiere School in La Porte, Ind.

The La Lumiere School, a powerhouse prep-school squad, has a roster that also features Orange 2022 four-star target J.J. Starling, an elite point guard in his class.

Syracuse basketball was the first to offer Holloway a scholarship, back in the summer of 2019. He has other offers from teams such as Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Texas A&M and Winthrop.

Cain, a shooting guard and stellar bucket-getter in the 2023 cycle, said via Twitter this past February that the ‘Cuse coaching staff had offered him.

He attends Knoxville Catholic High School in Knoxville, Tenn., and runs with the Knoxville-based B. Maze Elite on the AAU circuit. His other offers include from Tennessee, South Carolina, Belmont, Howard and ETSU.

Last Tuesday, college coaches were able to start making direct contact with 2023 high-school players. To that end, 247Sports national analyst Travis Branham recently said in a tweet that numerous teams had contacted Cain, such as Syracuse basketball, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina and Wake Forest.

Both Holloway and Cain have received a bunch of high praise from analysts and other recruiting insiders in recent months. Where they arrived in the Rivals.com updated national rankings for the 2023 class isn’t all that surprising.

I expect the offer list for each prospect to significantly increase in the near future.