Syracuse Basketball: With Kamari Lands out, this 4-star wing is pivotal

Syracuse basketball high-priority target Chris Bunch, a 2022 four-star wing, could absolutely fill the void left by the de-commitment over this past weekend of fellow 2022 four-star wing Kamari Lands.

Is the 6-foot-7 Bunch as good of a prospect as the 6-foot-8 Lands? That remains to be seen. For now, anyway, Lands has higher national rankings within the 2022 cycle than Bunch does.

However, as I like to stress from time to time, these ratings are subjective and don’t always tell the entire story about a particular high-school player.

Plus, Bunch has made big jumps of late in some national rankings, and I could envision that continuing on this fall, given that he will suit up for a national prep-school powerhouse.

Syracuse basketball four-star target Chris Bunch is a key 2022 prospect.

There are a couple of important things to point out regarding Bunch, Lands and the Orange’s 2022 class. For one, both Bunch and Lands are wing players. I’ve seen each of these guys quoted in interviews as saying that they can suit up at small forward, shooting guard and point guard.

Furthermore, a wing player in this cycle is important for the ‘Cuse. The team, in its 2022 class, has a four-star point guard in Quadir Copeland and a four-star wing in Justin Taylor.

Taylor, from what I can tell, is being recruited by Orange coaches more as a shooting guard to replace current senior Buddy Boeheim, rather than as a small forward.

So Bunch, who has taken an official visit to the Hill, and Lands, who has not, seem to have positional overlap. Also, you never know how things will break down once high-school players enter college, but Lands could be a one-and-done guy, whereas Bunch could stick around for two to three years.

Finally, while most recruiting services rank Lands higher than Bunch, not all of them do. Yes, Lands is a top-25 player according to ESPN, and Bunch isn’t rated in the top-100 nationally by all of the primary recruiting Web sites.

That being said, 247Sports has Bunch as the No. 57 prospect in the 2022 class, as well as the No. 14 small forward. Lands, according to 247Sports, is No. 62 overall and No. 15 at small forward.

Again, I hate to sit here and try to compare Bunch with Lands, because they both have another year of prep school remaining.

Bunch is transferring to the Wasatch Academy in Mount Pleasant, Utah, which could find itself in the pre-season top-10 across the country ahead of the upcoming stanza. Lands, meanwhile, is transferring to Hillcrest Prep in Gilbert, Ariz.

If Bunch has a better senior season than Lands, he could end up being ranked higher. And if Bunch were to select Syracuse basketball and stick around for more than one term, I’d mark that as a recruiting win for the Orange when all is said and done.