Syracuse basketball commit plummets in national rankings, drops to 3 stars

This is one of those cases where I’m going to pass along some updated recruiting rankings of a Syracuse basketball commit, however, I wholeheartedly (but respectfully) disagree with these ratings and believe they seriously disrespect this Orange pledge.

In an event, we’re talking in this column about 2022 wing Justin Taylor, a 6-foot-6 shooting guard/small forward who suits up for the post-grad team at the powerhouse IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.

Taylor has signed his national letter of intent to play for the ‘Cuse. He verbally committed to the Orange last June after picking the ‘Cuse over other finalists North Carolina, Indiana, Virginia Tech and Virginia.

Most of the primary recruiting services continue to rate Taylor as a four-star prospect, but unfortunately, not all of them are these days.

The 247Sports recruiting service has refreshed its national rankings of the top-150 players in the 2022 cycle, and Taylor fell from four stars to three stars, which is pretty lame in my humble opinion.

Let’s look at various new national ratings for Syracuse basketball commit Justin Taylor.

In the updated 2022 rankings from 247Sports, Taylor had one of the biggest drops in the entire class. He is down 45 placements to No. 127 across the country, as well as No. 30 at small forward and No. 19 in Florida, per 247Sports.

ESPN has also refreshed its 2022 ratings of the top-100 players, and even though Taylor previously made the cut, he hasn’t in this update. ESPN, though, does have Taylor as four stars and the No. 29 small forward.

Another main recruiting Web site, Rivals.com, presently has Taylor as four stars, No. 65 nationally and No. 18 at small forward. Based on these other updates, I would imagine that Taylor is poised to drop when Rivals.com refreshes its own 2022 rankings at some point in the future, although I sincerely hope that I’m wrong.

At the time of this writing, the industry-generated 247Sports Composite had rated Taylor as four stars, No. 108 overall, No. 26 at small forward and No. 18 in Florida.

All of these lower ratings for Taylor are disappointing, and I’m sure that some Orange fans will bring this up and opine that the ‘Cuse five-member 2022 class isn’t all that good, Taylor is overrated, blah, blah, blah.

I often use recruiting rankings as context in my stories on high-school prospects. I felt it was fair to pass along Taylor’s updated national ratings here. But that doesn’t in any way, shape or form take away from the talented player that Taylor is.

From my perspective, he is going to shine on the Hill in the near future, whether he’s a consensus top-100 player coming out of high school or not.