New Syracuse basketball recruiting target absolutely blowing up with offers

Syracuse basketball only offered a scholarship to fast-rising 2023 prospect Kaden Cooper in the last few weeks, so I haven’t been tracking his recruiting process for that long.

But let me tell you, this sizzling high-school player in the junior class is one of the hottest names in 2023, and the Orange coaching staff will have its hands full if it hopes to win out for the three-star guard/small forward from Oklahoma.

The 6-foot-6 Cooper, an athletic and explosive-scoring guard/small forward, was one of the best all-around performers during the NCAA live periods last month on the AAU circuit.

While it appears that most recruiting services presently rate him as a three-star player in the 2023 cycle, I feel confident in saying that this going to change, and rather quickly.

Syracuse basketball faces an uphill climb for three-star wing Kaden Cooper.

Multiple recruiting analysts and scouts have said of late that Cooper boosted his stock on a national scale just about as much as anyone during the April live periods where college coaches and others could watch high-school prospects in person.

In the 2021-22 season, Cooper competed for The Skill Factory in Atlanta. He previously suited up for Ada High School in Ada, Okla., and Cooper is with the Oklahoma-based Team Trae Young on the AAU circuit in the Adidas league.

Just in the past several weeks amid the recently concluded live periods, the offers have poured in for Cooper. Some of the more recent ones have come from squads such as Houston, a Final Four participant in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, Pittsburgh, TCU, Mississippi State and Xavier, which has a new head coach in former Arizona boss Sean Miller.

According to a recent tweet from Trent Markwith, the owner of scouting service Relentless Hoops, some of the other recent offers doled out to Cooper are from the likes of Kansas, Illinois, Texas, Texas Tech, Kansas State, Georgia Tech, Creighton, LSU, Wake Forest, Oklahoma, St. John’s, Rutgers, Omaha and Kent State.

Per media reports, recruiting services and his Twitter page, Cooper appears to have other offers from college teams including DePaul and Oklahoma State, among others, with reported interest from Kentucky, Gonzaga, Maryland, West Virginia, Oregon, Butler, Connecticut and the NBA’s G League.

At the time of this writing, the industry-generated 247Sports Composite rated Cooper as three stars, No. 196 nationally, No. 45 at small forward and No. 11 in Georgia.

Rivals.com has him as three stars, and 247Sports places this Syracuse basketball recruit as three stars, No. 61 at small forward and No. 11 in Georgia.

I’m not a recruiting analyst or a scout, but given his play of late, I’d be shocked if Cooper doesn’t emerge as a consensus four-star, top-100 prospect in the 2023 class.