Syracuse Basketball: Coaches hit the recruiting trail hard, and it’s glorious

Syracuse basketball coaches, with long-time boss Jim Boeheim only having retired a few days ago, are putting in work on the recruiting trail right at the onset of this new Orange era.

That’s great to see. One consistent theme I would come across when interacting with fellow ‘Cuse fans on social media and in chat rooms is that, in recent years, Boeheim wasn’t active enough on the recruiting trail.

Whether that’s accurate or not, it was a perception among many Orange fans, and the new coaching staff, led by head coach Adrian Autry, has started off on a terrific note when it comes to the team’s recruiting efforts.

Syracuse basketball coaches are hitting the recruiting trail hard at the get-go.

On Saturday, the entire ‘Cuse coaching staff was in attendance to watch 2024 four-star priority target Jalil Bethea play in a first-round game of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (“PIAA”) 6A tournament.

The 6-foot-4 Bethea, who took an official visit to the Hill last fall, is a standout junior for Archbishop Wood Catholic High School in Warminster, Pa. He recently was named MVP of the loaded Philadelphia Catholic League.

On Sunday, the full Syracuse basketball coaching staff was in attendance to check out 2024 four-star commit Elijah Moore, a talented shooting guard, and 2024 five-star target Boogie Fland, who is one of the best point guards across the country in the junior cycle.

In that New York City battle, the 6-foot-3 Fland tallied 30 points, four assists, and two steals as his squad, Archbishop Stepinac High School from White Plains, N.Y., defeated Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, N.Y., by a final count of 69-66 at St. John’s University in Queens.

That outcome resulted in Archbishop Stepinac capturing the New York Catholic High School Athletic Association (“CHSAA”) “AA” intersectional (city) championship.

The 6-foot-4 Moore, a star junior for Cardinal Hayes, had 18 points in the loss. He verbally committed to the ‘Cuse in late January over other finalists Alabama, Arkansas, Miami and Oklahoma State.

Fland, meanwhile, received a Syracuse basketball scholarship offer in January. He has a flood of high-major offers, with multiple blue-blood programs reportedly recruiting him hard.

Several national recruiting analysts have said lately that the Orange coaching staff is putting on a full-court press for Fland. A critical component here is for Syracuse basketball coaches to get him on the Orange campus for a visit.

On Tuesday night, the ‘Cuse coaching staff is planning to watch 2024 four-star big man Thomas Sorber, a star junior for Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia.

Archbishop Ryan will go toe to toe with West Chester East High School out of West Chester, Pa., on March 14 beginning at 7:30 pm at Bensalem High School in Bensalem, Pa., in a PIAA 5A tournament second-round contest.

Syracuse basketball coaches offered a scholarship to Sorber last August. He took an unofficial visit to Central New York at that time to compete in the Orange’s annual Elite Camp.

The 6-foot-9 Sorber, a top-flight power forward/center, is AAU teammates with Bethea for the Philadelphia-based Team Final in Nike’s EYBL league.

Sorber has soared within the 2024 national rankings in recent months. On3, for one, had him at No. 43 overall, No. 6 at center and No. 1 in Pennsylvania when I wrote this column.

I’m really excited to see Autry as well as assistant coaches Allen Griffin and Gerry McNamara showing top-flight recruits that they are priorities so early on in the era of Autry as the Syracuse basketball head coach.