Syracuse Basketball: 4-star, 5-star targets take home Peach Jam honors

The 2021 Peach Jam tournament in North Augusta, S.C., will wrap up this coming weekend, and several Syracuse basketball prospects are aiming for the title.

An abbreviated regular season of Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL) took place last week at the Peach Jam, with pool play among qualifying squads going on this week, followed by a single-elimination tournament occurring this Saturday and Sunday.

The folks at The Circuit, which provides coverage of AAU competitions, have published a piece that details the stand-out performers from the EYBL regular season. This article has statistics for each player, by the way.

Multiple high-school prospects in various classes who have connections to the Orange are getting honored, and we’re taking a look at them in this column.

Several stellar Syracuse basketball prospects have shined at the Peach Jam.

The Circuit named 2023 five-star point guard D.J. Wagner as the top underclassman. Wagner suits up for the Millburn, N.J.-based New Jersey Scholars Elite Basketball Club, and he is also a sophomore at Camden High School in Camden, N.J.

Orange coaches have reportedly reached out to Wagner, who is the No. 1 overall prospect across the country in his cycle.

On the first team is 2022 four-star power forward Kyle Filipowski, who is with the New York City-based NY Renaissance and a junior at the Wilbraham & Monson Academy in Wilbraham, Mass. Filipowski has fared quite well on the AAU circuit of late.

Members of the second team are Wagner and J.J. Starling, a Central New York native and a 2022 four-star guard. He competes for the Albany City Rocks and is a junior at the La Lumiere School in La Porte, Ind.

The all-underclassmen squad includes Wagner and 2023 five-star combo guard Simeon Wilcher. The ‘Cuse recently offered Wilcher, who plays for the NY Renaissance and is a sophomore at Roselle Catholic High School in Roselle, N.J.

Finally, honorable mentions go out to 2022 four-star guard Chance Westry and Syracuse basketball 2022 four-star commit Kamari Lands.

Westry suits up for the NY Renaissance and is a junior at Hillcrest Prep in Gilbert, Ariz. Lands competes for the Los Angeles-based Team Why Not and is a junior at Prolific Prep in Napa Valley, Calif.

This past April, Lands gave a verbal commitment to the Orange, representing the first addition to the team’s 2022 class.