Look for Syracuse basketball to ramp up recruitment of these 5-star targets
By Neil Adler
Derik Queen
Derik Queen, a five-star big man and a top-10 national player in 2024, has in the past drawn comparisons to former Orange legend Carmelo Anthony.
For one, they both have ties to Baltimore. But the 6-foot-9 Queen, a power forward/center, has been likened to Anthony even more so by some experts because of the young man’s stellar mid-range game.
So, naturally, we’d love for Queen to replicate Anthony’s success in Central New York, as Carmelo led the ‘Cuse to the program’s only national title in 2003.
No pressure, Derik! All kidding aside, Syracuse basketball coaches offered a scholarship to Queen last October.
He hails from Baltimore, and in his first season for the Saint Frances Academy in that city, he was arguably the country’s top freshman.
As a sophomore, Queen moved on from the Saint Frances Academy to the Montverde Academy in Montverde, Fla., which in recent years has proven the nation’s No. 1 prep-school squad.
In early April, the Montverde Academy won the prestigious 2022 GEICO Nationals in Ft. Myers, Fla.
The Eagles featured an absolutely loaded line-up in 2021-22, and therefore Queen didn’t log a ton of minutes. But he still averaged 6.2 points and 4.2 rebounds per contest for the Montverde Academy, while getting an All-America honorable-mention nod within the 2024 class from MaxPreps.
Come mid-June, I’d envision that Queen’s list of offers will greatly grow. Beyond the Orange, his early offers have arrived from teams such as Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Auburn, DePaul, Maryland, Texas, Virginia Tech, Georgetown, LSU, Arizona State and Xavier.
He’s pretty much a consensus top-10 overall prospect in 2024 and could make a run at No. 1 nationally in this class when all is said and done.
Recruiting services also view him as the No. 1 or the No. 2 power forward/center around the entire country in the 2024 cycle.
In AAU competitions, Queen stars for the Baltimore-based Team Thrill in the Under Armour Association (“UAA”) league. With college coaches in attendance during NCAA live periods in April, Queen had really strong performances, experts say.