Syracuse basketball recruit crushes things for City Rocks during live period

Syracuse basketball coaches, earlier this month, offered a scholarship to talented and underrated 2024 wing Damarius Owens, and it’s easy to understand why given his performance this weekend on the AAU circuit during an NCAA live period.

The 6-foot-7 guard/forward, who hails from Upstate New York, has put up some monster games for the Albany City Rocks on Nike’s EYBL circuit in a live period where college coaches, recruiting analysts and others are watching high-school prospects compete in person.

According to box scores provided for his first two contests for the Albany City Rocks, Owens absolutely lit up the scoreboard, averaging 23 points per game over that pair of encounters.

Besides playing for the Albany City Rocks, which has sent numerous of its alumni to the Hill in recent years, Owens recently finished up his sophomore stanza during the 2021-22 campaign for the Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio.

Thankfully, Syracuse basketball has entered the recruitment of Damarius Owens early on.

Owens, who previously played at the Aquinas Institute in Rochester, N.Y., disclosed his scholarship offer from the ‘Cuse earlier in April via his Twitter page.

Per his Twitter account and recruiting services, at this juncture, his other offers include from Cincinnati, UMass, Siena and UMBC.

College coaches will be able to start making direct contact with 2024 players in mid-June. Given Owens’ performances in AAU games, I fully anticipate his offer sheet rapidly expanding, and I also imagine he’ll enter the national rankings in this cycle, sooner rather than later.

This weekend, Owens and his Albany City Rocks colleagues have been playing in the Indianapolis area.

In one affair, in which his team lost 77-54 to Vegas Elite, Owens logged 32 minutes, 28 points, five rebounds, two assists and two steals.

Shooting-wise, he connected on 9-of-13 from the field, 4-of-6 from beyond the arc, and 6-of-8 from the free-throw line.

When the Albany City Rocks dismantled Seattle Rotary, 72-42, Owens played 27 minutes, scoring 18 points while registering seven boards, four assists, two blocks and one steal.

In that triumph, he hit on 7-of-15 from the field as a whole, 2-of-3 from deep, and 2-of-2 from the charity stripe.

We will of course continue to track Owens’ recruiting process moving forward, and hopefully Syracuse basketball will evolve into a significant contender for him.