Syracuse basketball offered a scholarship to 2022 four-star point guard Quadir Copeland last November, and from what I can tell, the Orange coaching staff has made him a top priority in this cycle ever since.
The 6-foot-6 Copeland, a top-100 prospect across the country in the 2022 class, said on social media earlier this month that he would suit up for the ‘Cuse.
He picked Syracuse basketball over a group of other finalists that included Maryland, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Miami, Penn State, DePaul and La Salle.
For several months now, the chatter among recruiting insiders as well as in Orange chat rooms was that Syracuse basketball appeared to be the front-runner to land Copeland.
Leading up to his commitment announcement on August 10, multiple national analysts on recruiting Web sites had logged predictions for Copeland in the direction of the ‘Cuse.
You never know how this recruiting stuff will ultimately go, but it didn’t surprise me at all when Copeland posted on Instagram and Twitter that his collegiate destination would be the Orange.
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— QUADIR COPELAND (@unoducat) August 10, 2021
Syracuse basketball always stayed in consistent contact with Quadir Copeland.
Throughout his recruiting process, Copeland would talk regularly with ‘Cuse coaches, including his primary recruiter, Syracuse basketball assistant coach Gerry McNamara.
Copeland has said in numerous interviews that loyalty and relationships are important to him, and he told SyracuseOnSI publisher Mike McAllister in a recent interview that McNamara believed in him from the get-go.
"“It was really big,” Copeland said. “That’s what I was going on. Relationships and loyalty. G-Mac, he stayed loyal and we stayed connected from the start of my recruitment. No matter the weekends, no matter nothing, it was always about knowing I could play and putting his faith in me.”"
Copeland, who will attend the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., during his senior year of high school, has big-time goals for his collegiate career in Central New York. He wants to win a lot of games and deliver a second national championship to head coach Jim Boeheim and the Orange program.
Earlier this summer, Copeland took an official visit to the ‘Cuse, and it went quite well. After Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League culminated with the 2021 Peach Jam tournament a few weeks ago, Copeland told McAllister that he spent some time evaluating “the schools that offered me. Syracuse was just the right place.”
Welcome to Orange Nation, Quadir.