Syracuse Basketball: Duke jumps into picture for Brewster 5-star targets

Blue-blood program and fellow Atlantic Coast Conference member Duke has gotten into the recruiting fray for a pair of Syracuse basketball five-star targets who suit up for the powerhouse Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, N.H.

The two 2023 high-school players with new scholarship offers from the Blue Devils are 6-foot-10 guard/wing Matas Buzelis and 6-foot-8 wing Taylor Bowen.

Multiple national analysts reported on the Duke offers to these juniors at Brewster Academy, and those offers are also detailed under the bios for Buzelis and Bowen on the 247Sports Web site.

Orange coaches got in relatively early on in the recruiting process of Buzelis, offering him a scholarship nearly a year ago. The ‘Cuse has shown interest in Bowen, but I haven’t seen anything as of yet about an official offer to him.

Not too long ago, according to media reports, Syracuse basketball coaches made a trip to the Brewster Academy to visit with Bowen, Buzelis and several of their teammates at the New Hampshire prep school.

Syracuse basketball faces steep competition for five-star targets Matas Buzelis, Taylor Bowen.

Following the upcoming stanza, legendary head coach Mike Krzyzewski will retire, with assistant Jon Scheyer stepping in as the new Blue Devils boss.

Scheyer is crushing things on the recruiting trail of late, as he’s recently brought in numerous top-flight commits within the 2022 and 2023 classes.

I would expect Duke to become a significant contender for Buzelis and Bowen, although both already have a boatload of offers and interest from other big-time college teams.

Bowen also recently landed an offer from another blue-blood school, Kansas. His other offers include from Dayton, Marquette, Southern California, Maryland, Penn State, Connecticut, LSU, Arkansas, Providence, Rutgers, Iowa, Vermont and George Mason.

Ranked in the top-25 nationally in the 2023 cycle, according to the 247Sports Composite, Bowen is being prioritized by squads such as Arkansas, Providence, UConn, Kansas and Kentucky, according to media reports.

Besides Duke, Buzelis recently got offered by Michigan State, according to recruiting services. His offers and interest include from North Carolina, Kansas, Florida State, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio State, Illinois, Florida, Purdue, Oklahoma, Arizona, UCLA, Maryland and Connecticut.

In a recent column, we detailed how Buzelis made one of the largest leaps in refreshed national rankings from 247Sports. Buzelis went from No. 43 overall to No. 4 nationwide, according to that recruiting service.

In recent months, Buzelis has proven one of the hottest prospects around the country within the 2023 class, and some analysts view him as potentially making a run at the No. 1 overall rating in this cycle.

At the time of this writing, the industry-generated 247Sports Composite placed Buzelis at No. 12 nationally in the 2023 class.