Syracuse Basketball: Orange is out of running for fast-rising 4-star big man

Four-star big man Tafara Gapare, who only recently became a recruiting target for Syracuse basketball coaches in the 2023 class, has trimmed his list of contenders down to seven, according to a media report.

The Orange, unfortunately, didn’t make the cut. Per an article from On3 national analyst Joe Tipton, those still in the running for the 6-foot-10 wing/power forward are Maryland, Illinois, DePaul, Virginia Tech and Connecticut, as well as two professional options, Overtime Elite and the National Basketball League (“NBL”), which is based in Australia.

According to Tipton, Gapare plans to announce his collegiate or pro destination this coming Monday evening. It looks like DePaul may be getting some analyst “buzz” in Gapare’s recruitment.

As of Saturday late morning, I counted at least four predictions in the direction of DePaul for Gapare between the 247Sports Web site and Rivals.com.

Syracuse basketball offered a scholarship to four-star Tafara Gapare at the end of April.

As far as I can tell, Gapare appears to be a late bloomer on a national scale in his class, and his recruitment has blown up of late due to his outstanding performances on the AAU circuit.

Originally from Wellington, New Zealand, Gapare attends the South Kent School in South Kent, Conn. In grassroots basketball, he suits up for the Baltimore-based Team Melo in Nike’s EYBL league.

A one-time commit to George Washington, Gapare has earned other offers from squads including Connecticut, Illinois, UMass, Washington State, Hawaii, Towson, Rutgers, Maryland, Arizona State, DePaul, Pittsburgh, Missouri, Virginia Tech and Xavier.

As we recently detailed, when 247Sports updated its 2023 national ratings of the top-150 prospects in this class not too long ago, Gapare was a big stock-riser, going from unranked to four stars, No. 46 overall, No. 11 at power forward and No. 2 in Connecticut.

The industry-generated On3 Consensus, at the time of this writing, placed Gapare as four stars, No. 76 across the country, No. 14 at power forward and No. 3 in Connecticut.

According to 247Sports, Gapare took an official visit to DePaul and an unofficial visit to Maryland. I’ve read some commentary online in the past day or two that suggests DePaul and Maryland might be considered the two front-runners for him.

Multiple recent reports have said that while Gapare is presently in the 2023 cycle, he could move up to the 2022 class. Tipton said in his story that a decision on this will not get made until later on in the summer.

I had hoped that Syracuse basketball would emerge as a viable contender for Gapare, but I’m wishing Tafara all the best!