Syracuse Basketball: 5-star target is on pre-season All-America first team

As traditional high schools and prep-school squads get their 2021-22 seasons underway, a Syracuse basketball prospect is getting all kinds of pre-season accolades.

D.J. Wagner, a five-star point guard in the 2023 class who landed an offer from Orange coaches this past August, has received inclusion on the MaxPreps pre-season All-America first team, according to a recent article from Jordan Divens, who is the national basketball editor for MaxPreps.

Of the five players on the first squad, the 6-foot-3 Wagner is the only uncommitted high-school prospect. Joining him on this team are a pair of Duke commits in Dariq Whitehead and Dereck Lively II, along with Kentucky pledge Cason Wallace and UCLA commit Amari Bailey.

Wagner picked up his offer from the ‘Cuse coaching staff over the summer at the team’s annual Elite Camp. He is a junior at Camden High School in Camden, N.J., which is deemed by many experts as one of the top groups nationwide.

Syracuse basketball five-star target D.J. Wagner is a pre-season All-American.

It’s not much of a surprise that Wagner is on the MaxPreps pre-season All-America first team. For the time being, he is the consensus No. 1 junior across the country, although several other elite prospects in this cycle who hold Orange offers of their own are expected to contend for the top spot in 2023.

Beyond Syracuse basketball, Wagner has offers from college squads including Memphis, Kentucky, Villanova and Temple, along with interest from big-time programs such as Duke, Gonzaga, Michigan and Arkansas, according to recruiting services and media reports.

Per reports, he recently made official visits to Kentucky and Memphis, which are two of the primary recruiting giants in the sport and figure to be significant contenders in Wagner’s recruitment.

Wagner is the son of Dajuan Wagner, who competed for Kentucky head coach John Calipari at Memphis for one season prior to getting selected at No. 6 overall in the first round of the 2002 NBA Draft.

Even though his recruiting process could have a way to go, D.J. Wagner has already received multiple predictions from recruiting insiders in the direction of Kentucky on the 247Sports Web site and Rivals.com.

In the 2020-21 stanza, MaxPreps named Wagner its National Sophomore Player of the Year, as he averaged 22 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game, according to Divens.

Camden High School will face an extremely challenging schedule in 2021-22, and we’ll of course continue to monitor how Wagner’s junior term progresses.