Syracuse Basketball: Rumored leader for 4-star Chance Westry out of mix

For a decent amount of time of late, a Southeastern Conference team has gotten all kinds of buzz for Syracuse basketball 2022 target Chance Westry, who is a four-star guard and a consensus top-40 prospect in this cycle.

The 6-foot-5 Westry received a scholarship offer from the Orange coaching staff more than two years ago. From what I can tell, he has amounted to a high-priority recruit for the ‘Cuse for a while.

Westry took several official visits earlier this summer, including one to the Hill. More recently, he named a top 10 of Syracuse basketball, Mike Hopkins-led Washington, Maryland, Auburn, LSU, Connecticut, Southern California, Arizona State, Nebraska and DePaul.

As we’ve written about in multiple columns in recent weeks, the SEC’s LSU had picked up a bunch of predictions from national analysts and recruiting insiders as it pertains to Westry’s recruitment.

But according to at least one tweet, LSU is no longer in the running for him.

Syracuse basketball is one of 10 finalists for four-star guard Chance Westry.

Adam Zagoria, a college basketball insider, recently sent out a couple of tweets regarding Westry’s recruiting process. For one, Zagoria wrote that “LSU is no longer in it.”

Zagoria said that Westry will take an official visit to Southern California from September 24-26, adding that teams such as Auburn, the Orange and Arizona State remain in pursuit.

First and foremost, Zagoria is really plugged in and one of the best in the business. Number two, I am not a recruiting analyst, so I have no idea whether LSU dropping out could help the Syracuse basketball chances with Westry.

For what it’s worth, on this past Sunday afternoon when I penned this article, Westry still had multiple analyst predictions on the 247Sports Web site and Rivals.com in the direction of LSU.

However, at least two projections for him to LSU were recently taken down on the 247Sports Web site. This is simply food for thought. Maybe LSU being out of contention helps the Orange. Maybe not. We’ll have to see how this plays out.

Let’s also keep in mind that Syracuse basketball has a 2022 commit in four-star point guard Quadir Copeland, and the ‘Cuse will soon reportedly get a second official visit from J.J. Starling, a 2022 four-star guard and Central New York native.

I believe that while Copeland is more of a pure point guard, the Orange coaching staff has been recruiting Starling and Westry as combo guards.

This is only my personal take, but keep an eye on Arizona State. In the upcoming campaign, Westry will suit up for Hillcrest Prep in Gilbert, Ariz., along with other players such as former Syracuse basketball 2022 four-star commit Kamari Lands, 2022 center Duke Brennan and 2024 wing Jason Asemota.

Brennan recently committed to Arizona State. Lands recently picked up an offer from the Sun Devils, among others. Asemota also has an offer from Arizona State. Then again, the Sun Devils on Sunday got a verbal commitment from 2022 four-star guard Austin Nunez.