Syracuse Basketball: Kentucky showing significant interest in 5-star target

Whenever a blue-blood program such as Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina or Kansas gets into the mix for a Syracuse basketball recruiting prospect, it likely means an uphill battle for the Orange to win out.

That appears to be the case in the recruitment of 2023 five-star forward Kwame Evans Jr. from Baltimore, who suits up for a powerhouse prep-school program and is seeing his stock soar.

The 6-foot-9 Evans, a consensus five-star, top-five overall player nationwide in his cycle, landed a scholarship offer from ‘Cuse coaches just a few weeks ago.

As we’ve noted in several columns of late, Evans already boasts more than 20 offers from a range of high-major groups, such as Oregon, Ohio State, Indiana, Memphis, Texas, Southern California, Florida, Illinois, Pittsburgh, Kansas, LSU, Maryland, Tennessee, Texas A&M, St. John’s, Georgetown, Virginia Tech and Auburn.

Syracuse basketball will go up against numerous blue-bloods for five-star Kwame Evans Jr.

At the time of this writing, Evans was No. 2 overall in the 2023 class via the industry-generated 247Sports Composite. For his junior season, he has transferred from the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute to the Montverde Academy in Montverde, Fla., which is one of the premier prep-school units around the country.

According to his bio on several recruiting Web sites, Evans is garnering interest from recruiting heavyweights Duke and Kentucky, and one national analyst on Rivals.com has actually logged a prediction for him in the direction of Oregon.

Per a couple of recent tweets from recruiting insiders that Evans posted on his Twitter page, coaches from Duke, Oregon and USC all recently visited with him at the Montverde Academy.

Additionally, multiple media reports, including one from recruiting guru Jake Weingarten of Stockrisers.com, state that Evans plans to take an official visit to Kentucky from November 4 to November 6.

Oh, boy. If Evans is going on an official visit to the Wildcats, I could absolutely envision him picking up an offer from Kentucky in the near future.

This would be no surprise. Evans is an elite prospect, and it’s pretty much expected that teams such as Kentucky, Duke and other big-time college programs are going to be in the mix for him.

Now, does this mean that the Orange has no shot with Evans? I wouldn’t say that at all. But it will prove a huge challenge for Syracuse basketball to ultimately pick up Evans.