Syracuse Basketball: Missing out on a star hometown recruit really stings

The recruiting world can often be heart-breaking and pain-staking, and such is the case with long-time Syracuse basketball 2022 target J.J. Starling.

The 6-foot-4 Starling, a four-star combo guard and a consensus top-40 prospect in his class, is a Central New York native who moved on to a prep-school powerhouse in Indiana, shined on a national stage during prep and AAU competitions, and saw his stock absolutely blow up.

In recent months, more than one national analyst has spoken to Starling attaining five-star status before his high-school playing days are over. The senior at the La Lumiere School in La Porte, Ind., earned a bevy of high-major scholarship offers, including from his hometown college squad, the Orange.

The ‘Cuse coaching staff offered Starling more than two years ago, seeing the potential and promise in him way before other college teams did, and before this young man saw his national rankings soar.

In many, many interviews, Starling would say that Syracuse basketball coaches were recruiting him hard, prioritizing him, and regularly communicating with him. Starling took two official visits to the Hill and had the ‘Cuse in his top five, along with Duke, Northwestern, Notre Dame and Stanford.

The Orange coaching staff seemingly did everything it could to win out in the recruiting sweepstakes over Starling, at least from my perspective. Unfortunately, though, it wasn’t quite enough.

Syracuse basketball 2022 top target J.J. Starling has made his college decision.

On Tuesday, in the early evening, after a recruiting process that had tons of ‘Cuse fans equally excited and nervous, Starling revealed his collegiate destination. After a recruitment that he and his inner circle kept quite close to the vest, Starling said that he would attend Notre Dame, a fellow Atlantic Coast Conference team that struggled a season ago but, with Starling and others on board, certainly has a bright future.

Naturally, this development broke the collective hearts of many Orange fanatics out there, myself included. I think that Starling is not only exceptional on the court, but he also has a lot of integrity, and he’s extremely bright. I wish that he would have chosen the ‘Cuse, but I am confident that he will flourish in South Bend, Ind.

Recruiting is fickle. There are highs and lows. Buzz flies around all over the place. Presumed front-runners are replaced by different favorites along the way. It does feel, sometimes in recent years, that Syracuse basketball is frequently among a small group of finalists for top-flight targets, but the Orange ends up missing out in the end.

As I always like to say, it’s better to be in the running at the culmination of a high-school player’s recruitment than be out of contention. But seeing a young man from Central New York, who was courted by the ‘Cuse for more than two years, select another ACC school is a tough pill to swallow.

Plus, I’ve read a lot of comments of late from my fellow Orange fans that center on the team’s 2022 class, a cycle that has had us all energized for a while now about the state of the squad’s recruiting, only to see guys like Starling, four-star Kamari Lands (TBD), five-star Dior Johnson (Oregon), five-star Kyle Filipowski (Duke) and four-star Donovan Clingan (UConn), among others, opt for different collegiate homes.

In looking at things more optimistically, the ‘Cuse 2022 class features a four-star point guard, a four-star wing and a talented big man. And, for my money, Syracuse basketball is in a great position to also land a 2022 four-star wing and a 2022 three-star power forward.

However, Starling, that exceptional local product who could have been the crown jewel of the Orange’s 2022 cycle, will don a Fighting Irish uniform, rather than a ‘Cuse one. And, my friends, this one hurts. A lot.