Syracuse Basketball: For 5-star Kentucky de-commit, favorites emerging?

A couple of weeks ago, 2022 five-star guard Skyy Clark de-committed from blue-blood team Kentucky and reopened his recruitment back up, with numerous college squads having recently reached out to him, including Syracuse basketball.

From the handful of media reports that I’ve read about the 6-foot-3 Clark of late from national recruiting analysts, Clark’s recruiting process isn’t over at all, and he could be setting up some visits in the near future.

That being said, even as potentially new suitors throw their hat into the ring for this consensus top-50 prospect, some analysts view favorites possibly emerging for Clark, who is a senior at the powerhouse Montverde Academy in Montverde, Fla.

Clark, who is from Nashville, Tenn., has said in an interview that “everything’s on the table right now. Every school has a fair shot.” According to reports, besides the Orange, those college groups that have reached out to Clark include Gonzaga, Illinois, Tennessee, Arizona State, South Carolina, Butler, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Mike Hopkins-led Washington, Xavier, USC, Oklahoma State and Marquette.

At this point, Syracuse basketball seems like a longshot for five-star guard Skyy Clark.

Eric Bossi, the national basketball director for 247Sports, recently said that Illinois and Washington are squads to keep an eye on in Clark’s recruitment. The entire staff at Washington recently made a trip to see Clark, per Pro Insight director of scouting Andrew Slater.

"Rob Cassidy, the basketball recruiting director for Rivals.com, wrote about the former Kentucky commit’s recruiting process, “Illinois is in pursuit of Clark and looks to be among the favorites to land him. Washington seems like the Illini’s main competition in the race, however, and recently sent their full staff to see the point guard in action. New schools could enter the race late, but this feels like a Big Ten-Pac 12 battle.”"

Additionally, in a recent piece, On3 national analysts Jamie Shaw and Joe Tipton discussed the latest in Clark’s recruitment. Shaw wrote in part, “Washington and Louisville are sure to look to make a big run here, but for now, Illinois seems to be the choice.”

Fellow Atlantic Coast Conference member Louisville, as we recently noted in a column, has hired Kenny Payne to replace Chris Mack as the Cardinals’ head coach.

Payne, an ace recruiter, is a former assistant coach at Oregon and Kentucky. Tipton pointed out that Payne has a “prior relationship” with Skyy Clark and his family, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Louisville gets into the recruiting fray for Clark.