Syracuse basketball was heavily involved w/ 5-star, doesn’t appear so now

Back in early January of this year, 2023 five-star forward Kwame Evans Jr. from Baltimore noted a handful of college teams that were heavily involved in his recruitment, including Syracuse basketball.

Fast-forward to the present, and based on a variety of media reports that I’ve read about the 6-foot-9 Evans of late, I don’t get the sense that the Orange is recruiting this elite prospect hard these days.

Of course, I don’t have inside information on Evans, and the recruiting processes of high-school players can ebb and flow. Based on some recent interviews that he’s given, though, I simply don’t foresee the ‘Cuse winning out for Evans, who is a junior at the powerhouse Montverde Academy in Montverde, Fla.

The Montverde Academy, one of the premier independent basketball academies around the country, recently was picked to suit up in the 2022 GEICO Nationals, a prestigious eight-team event that will take place from March 31 to April 2 at the Suncoast Credit Union Arena in Ft. Myers, Fla.

Syracuse basketball looks like a long shot to land five-star Kwame Evans Jr.

According to recruiting services and reports, Evans holds more than two-dozen offers, including from Kentucky, 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.

His most recent offer came from UCLA, and I’ve seen reports note that Duke and Gonzaga have shown interest in Evans. In a recent interview that he gave with Rivals.com national analyst Travis Graf, Evans provided some insights into his recruitment, mentioning schools such as Oregon, Kentucky, Indiana, Auburn, UCLA, Gonzaga and Texas.

Orange coaches offered Evans a scholarship in October of 2021. He has already taken an official visit to Kentucky, and reports say that Evans plans to make a trip to Oregon at the end of April.

In fact, at the time of this writing, three analysts on Rivals.com had logged predictions for Evans in the direction of Oregon, with two of those projections coming earlier in March.

It seems that his recruitment could end up coming down to Oregon versus Kentucky, but those other teams I noted directly above appear to be legit contenders, too.

In the most recent national rankings for the 2023 cycle, Evans is placed at No. 2 via the industry-generated 247Sports Composite, the On3 Consensus, ESPN and 247Sports, No. 4 at On3 and No. 5 at Rivals.com. Evans is regarded by recruiting services as the No. 1 small forward or the No. 1 power forward nationally in his class.