Syracuse basketball offers intriguing big man who soared during live period

According to recruiting services, Syracuse basketball coaches have offered scholarships to nearly 20 high-school players in the 2023 class.

While several Orange recruits in this cycle seemed to have emerged as priority targets in 2023, at least in my humble opinion, the ‘Cuse coaching staff does continue to dole out offers to prospects in this class.

Just in the last few days, Syracuse basketball coaches have offered two additional 2023 players who have fared quite well of late on the AAU circuit during NCAA live periods where college coaches, recruiting analysts, scouts and others could watch them compete in person.

One of those Orange offers went out to 2023 three-star Kaden Cooper, a 6-foot-6 guard/small forward who attends The Skill Factory in Atlanta and plays for Oklahoma-based Team Trae Young in the Adidas league on the grassroots basketball circuit.

The second offer handed out by the ‘Cuse went to 6-foot-10 Tafara Gapare, a 2023 power forward originally from Wellington, New Zealand.

Gapare is out of the South Kent School in South Kent, Conn., and suits up in AAU competitions for the Baltimore-based Team Melo in Nike’s EYBL league.

Let’s take a closer look at new Syracuse basketball recruit Tafara Gapare.

A tweet from South Kent School head coach Raphael Chillious says that the Orange was among the teams that watched players from this prep squad during open-gym availability this past week at the South Kent School.

Last weekend, according to a tweet from Rivals.com national analyst Travis Graf, Syracuse basketball was among those that checked out Team Melo during the live period when EYBL contests were held in the Indianapolis area.

In a recent tweet, scout Ari Rosenfeld said that Gapare has proven “of the bigger winners of the April recruiting periods.” While Gapare isn’t presently ranked on a national scale by the primary recruiting services, I could envision that changing at some point in the near future.

According to a recent article from Mike McAllister, the fabulous publisher of SyracuseOnSI, Gapare was originally in the 2022 class, then he reclassified to 2023, and he might have the option to reclassify back to the 2022 cycle if he so chooses.

Under his bio on the 247Sports Web site, it appears that at one time Gapare was committed to George Washington, but he de-committed from the Colonials in November of 2021, according to 247Sports.

Besides the Orange, to date, his other offers include from Rutgers, Maryland, Arizona State, DePaul, Pittsburgh, Missouri, Virginia Tech and Xavier, per recruiting services and Gapare’s own Twitter page.

As I’ve opined lately, Syracuse basketball coaches do a really fine job of identifying under-the-radar prospects who eventually see their recruitments blow up, and that absolutely could be the case with Gapare.

We’ll keep a close eye on his recruiting process moving forward.