Syracuse Basketball: Canadian guard putting up ridiculous EYBL numbers

An underrated Canadian guard in the rising-junior class who reportedly has garnered some level of interest from the Syracuse basketball coaching staff has absolutely shredded the competition in recent days on the AAU circuit.

Keenan Emmanuel, a 6-foot-2 guard in the 2024 cycle who hails from Mississauga, Ontario, has averaged 25.5 points per game over his first four contests during the latest session of Nike’s EYBL league amid an NCAA live period.

Emmanuel, who attends the Woodstock Academy in Woodstock, Conn., plays in grassroots basketball for UPLAY Canada in the EYBL league, which has been holding games at the Hy-Vee Arena in Kansas City, Mo.

EYBL posts box scores on its Web site, and by my calculations, Emmanuel is tallying nearly 26 points per affair. In all fairness, he is hoisting up a lot of shots, and UPLAY Canada is 0-4 in these AAU battles.

Let’s see if Syracuse basketball ends up offering 2024 guard Keenan Emmanuel.

As we noted in a piece on Emmanuel a few months ago, according to several national analysts, he has received interest from a handful of high-major programs early on in his recruiting process, including the ‘Cuse, Oregon, Connecticut, UCLA, California and DePaul.

In mid-June, college coaches could start initiating direct contact with 2024 high-school prospects, so I’d imagine that Emmanuel will witness his recruitment heat up in the near future.

To date, I’m not seeing him in the national rankings for this class, and he doesn’t have a bio on the main recruiting Web sites, so it’s hard for me to tell what scholarship offers he may have already landed.

One thing I can say with certainty is that Emmanuel can put the ball in the basket. Here are the statistics from his first four EYBL games in Kansas City.

Opponent: Team Griffin
31 minutes
5-of-9 from the field
1-of-3 from 3-point land
2-of-2 from the free-throw line
13 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals

Opponent: Indy Heat
32 minutes
5-of-19 from the field
4-of-7 from 3-point land
10-of-10 from the free-throw line
24 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 block and 1 steal

Opponent: NJ Scholars
29 minutes
11-of-22 from the field
1-of-6 from 3-point land
10-of-15 from the free-throw line
33 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals

Opponent: Albany City Rocks
29 minutes
10-of-27 from the field
2-of-9 from 3-point land
10-of-10 from the free-throw line
32 points and 5 rebounds

In May, an article on basketballbuzz.ca said that Emmanuel was one of six Canadian players who were invited to the 2022 Basketball Without Borders Americas camp in San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

The camp, held in mid-May, brought together dozens of top high-school boys and girls prospects from Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America to compete against one another and learn directly from present and former NBA/FIBA players.

We’ll certainly keep an eye on Emmanuel’s recruiting process as it relates to Syracuse basketball.