Syracuse Basketball: 4-star priority Brewster recruit scores new ACC suitor

Syracuse basketball welcomed 2023 priority recruiting target Reid Ducharme to the Hill for an official visit in mid-June, and that trip reportedly went quite well.

Per media reports, besides the Orange, the 6-foot-6 Ducharme recently took an official visit to Penn State and also plans to travel to Xavier in the coming days.

The ‘Cuse coaching staff offered a scholarship to the four-star shooting guard/small forward last August at the team’s annual Elite Camp.

Reports and interviews given by Ducharme have suggested that Syracuse basketball, led by assistant coach Gerry McNamara, is recruiting him hard.

I’ve also gotten the sense that Penn State coaches have targeted Ducharme for a while now, and Xavier is a solid Big East Conference squad now being led for a second time by former Arizona head coach Sean Miller.

Syracuse basketball seems to be in a good position with four-star wing Reid Ducharme.

As we’ve noted on numerous occasions, besides the Orange, Ducharme’s other offers include from Xavier, Rhode Island, Northwestern, Columbia, Connecticut, Iowa, Providence, Penn State, Creighton, DePaul, Stanford, Harvard, Brown and UMass.

However, fellow Atlantic Coast Conference squad Miami just offered Ducharme as well, according to recruiting services.

I’m not a recruiting analyst, so it’s unclear to me whether the Hurricanes have been communicating with Ducharme for a while now, or if Miami is newly entering the mix for him.

Either way, the Hurricanes are a good ACC program that made a strong run to the Elite Eight this past spring in the 2022 NCAA Tournament.

Miami, as a double-digit seed, crushed No. 2 seed Auburn on its Big Dance journey before falling to eventual national champion Kansas in a regional final match-up.

Ducharme has said that he would like to make a college choice before the start of his senior season at the Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, N.H.

We’ll certainly monitor whether Miami lands an official visit from Ducharme and emerges as a significant contender in his recruiting process.

In a recent interview with SyracuseOnSI publisher Mike McAllister, Ducharme spoke highly of the ‘Cuse program, coaching staff and its players following his official visit to Central New York.

If I had to venture a guess, I’d say that Syracuse basketball is one of the possible front-runners for Ducharme, although he told McAllister that he hasn’t “really leaned one way or the other, just trying to see all the options.”

As far as his national rankings go, ESPN has him the highest on a national scale, at No. 84.

When I penned this column, the industry-generated 247Sports Composite rated Ducharme just outside the top-100 overall, at No. 101.

Ducharme, who runs with the Boston Amateur Basketball Club in Nike’s EYBL league on the AAU circuit, is deemed a top-25 shooting guard/small forward within the 2023 class by the bevy of recruiting Web sites.