Syracuse Basketball: Monster visit arrives with 4-star J.J. Starling in town

Over the past few weeks, Syracuse basketball has hosted a range of elite 2022 prospects for their official visits, and four-star point guard J.J. Starling is set to travel to the Hill on June 25-27, according to various media reports.

This is a big-time official visit for the Orange coaching staff and players, as the 6-foot-3 Starling has proven a key target for quite some time in this cycle for the ‘Cuse.

Syracuse basketball coaches offered a scholarship to Starling, who is a Central New York native, nearly two years ago. Starling has said in the past that he communicates with the Orange quite frequently, and a lot of ‘Cuse fans are hopeful that he will join the squad’s 2022 class.

But, as we’ve noted on more than one occasion of late, the competition for Starling is intense. He holds a range of high-major offers, with a recent one coming from fellow Atlantic Coast Conference participant and blue-blood school Duke.

Prior to the Blue Devils offer, Starling told Tipton Edits that he’s being recruited the hardest by 11 groups, and they were Syracuse basketball, Auburn, Alabama, blue-blood Kansas, Northwestern, Miami, Notre Dame, Maryland, Connecticut, Stanford and Penn State.

Syracuse basketball is about to get an official visit from 2022 point guard J.J. Starling.

Starling is one of three point guards whom the Orange is pursuing in this cycle, with the other two being four-stars Chance Westry and Quadir Copeland. Following Starling’s official visit, all three will have made a trip to the ‘Cuse campus.

After he checks out the Hill, Starling is expected to travel to UConn for a visit that will run from June 28-30, per a recent tweet by Mike Curtis of Syracuse.com. Starling has already taken an official visit to Maryland.

Most recruiting services rank Starling as a top-50 prospect within the 2022 class, and several analysts have recently said that Starling is trending toward five-star status in the future.

He is presently a junior at the La Lumiere School in La Porte, Ind., and previously starred at Charles W. Baker High School in Baldwinsville, N.Y. On the AAU circuit, Starling suits up for the Albany City Rocks.

The chatter on social media and in chat rooms is that Syracuse basketball has a solid shot at landing one of these three point-guard targets. Honestly, it could boil down to whichever prospect elects to commit first.

To date, I haven’t seen any analyst predictions for Starling on the 247Sports Web site or Rivals.com. He has a lot of impressive suitors, with the Duke and Kansas offers worrying me the most.