Syracuse Basketball: Orange is unlikely to make top six for 5-star recruit

Five-star point guard Elliot Cadeau, a consensus top-15 national prospect in the 2024 class, is expected to trim his list of contenders on Saturday night, and I don’t anticipate Syracuse basketball making the cut.

Now, in all fairness, I’m not a recruiting analyst. Nor am I in the inner circle of the 6-foot-1 Cadeau. But this past spring, media reports suggested that the Orange was among the teams recruiting him the hardest.

More recently, Cadeau has taken official visits to several college campuses, but not the ‘Cuse. And when articles have been written about him lately, I have not come across any mentions of Syracuse basketball.

Therefore, when Cadeau reveals his top six, I’d be really surprised if the Orange’s name is mentioned. Per a tweet earlier this week from high-school hoops analyst Alex Karamanos, Cadeau plans to announce his top six on Saturday, Oct. 29, at 6:00 pm EST.

We’ll of course be eager to learn which of Cadeau’s many suitors end up residing within his top six.

Syracuse basketball got involved with five-star Elliot Cadeau early on.

The Orange coaching staff offered a scholarship to Cadeau last November. It wasn’t until June 15 of this year that college coaches could directly contact 2024 prospects, so once that contact period opened up, Cadeau saw his offer sheet grow even further.

Besides the ‘Cuse, other college squads to have offered him include North Carolina, Texas, Baylor, Louisville, Georgetown, Norfolk State, Kansas, Maryland, Seton Hall, Providence, St. John’s, Texas Tech, Tennessee, Oklahoma State, TCU, UMass, Howard and Siena. Kentucky has also shown interest, per reports.

In the spring, I did come across several pieces that said Syracuse basketball, Tennessee and Texas Tech were recruiting Cadeau the hardest. But as we all know, things ebb and flow in the recruiting processes of top-flight players like Cadeau.

He is a junior at the Link Academy in Branson, Mo., which is one of the best prep-school squads across the country. In grassroots basketball, Cadeau played well in the most recent circuit for one of the top AAU teams nationwide, the New York City-based New Heights Lightning in Nike’s EYBL league.

Most recruiting services rate Cadeau as a top-10 overall prospect in the 2024 cycle. He’s also deemed as either the No. 1 or No. 2 point guard in his class.

According to recruiting Web sites and his own Twitter page, Cadeau has recently taken official visits to Louisville, North Carolina and Texas Tech (Rivals.com has predictions in the direction of Texas Tech for him). I would assume those three will be in Cadeau’s top six.

During the fall recruiting period, others that have visited Cadeau in off-campus settings, such as open gyms, include Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Texas and Baylor.

I haven’t come across any mentions on social media of Syracuse basketball coaches checking in on Cadeau during the fall recruiting period.

The Orange, though, did recently have two 2024 players on campus for official visits, and they were four-star shooting guard Elijah Moore and three-star wing Damarius Owens.

Additionally, 2024 four-star guard Jalil Bethea is taking an official visit to the ‘Cuse this weekend.