Syracuse Basketball: ‘Cuse 4-star commits climb in 2024 national rankings

Syracuse basketball 2024 four-star commits Elijah Moore from New York City and Donnie Freeman from Washington, D.C., recently moved up in refreshed national rankings from one of the primary recruiting services.

Not too long ago, Rivals.com updated its 2024 national ratings. In these new rankings, the 6-foot-4 Moore jumped seven spots, to No. 54 across the country.

The 6-foot-9 Freeman, meanwhile, improved by a dozen placements, to No. 42 nationally, according to Rivals.com.

Moore, a top shooting guard in the rising-senior cycle, verbally committed to the Orange in late January, choosing the ‘Cuse over other finalists Alabama, Arkansas, Miami and Oklahoma State.

Freeman, one of the best power forwards in the 2024 class, gave his verbal commitment to Syracuse basketball in May. His other finalists were Alabama, Iowa, Texas and Georgia Tech.

Syracuse basketball has two top-60 national prospects in its 2024 cycle.

Respectfully, I still think that Donnie Freeman and Elijah Moore are underrated in this class. I’d have Freeman pushing the top 25, while Moore should get serious consideration for the top 40, if not higher than that.

Both of them had terrific junior years during the 2022-23 season and could earn All-America honors as seniors in the upcoming term.

Freeman is a star for St. John’s College High School in D.C. as well as for the 17U squad of the Washington-based Team Takeover in Nike’s EYBL league.

The same holds true for Moore, who attends Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, N.Y., and runs with the 17U team of the Bronx-based Wiz Kids in the Adidas 3SSB league.

Moore, to me, is vastly under-ranked. As I noted in another recent column, ESPN didn’t even include him when it updated its top 100 for the 2024 class.

He’s No. 56 nationally, No. 11 at shooting guard and No. 4 in New York, per 247Sports. On a national scale, the industry-generated On3 Industry Ranking, On3 and the industry-generated 247Sports Composite put him at No. 76, No. 81 and No. 97 overall when I wrote this piece.

If Freeman has another strong performance as a senior for St. John’s College, he could potentially vie for five-star status in the 2024 cycle.

Both 247Sports and On3 presently have him just inside the top 30 around the country.

ESPN, similar to Rivals.com, has Freeman at No. 42 nationwide. At the time of this writing, both the 247Sports Composite and the On3 Industry Ranking rated him within the top 40 overall.

Freeman is generally deemed the No. 1 prospect in our nation’s capital within the 2024 class, and he’s also viewed by some recruiting services as a top-five power forward in this cycle.

Syracuse basketball coaches have two excellent verbal commitments so far in their 2024 class, a cycle that has been ranked inside the top 10 nationally of late, according to various recruiting Web sites.