Syracuse Basketball: 4-star recruit from D.C. area is vastly under-ranked

Cam Ward, a 2025 four-star guard/small forward from the talent-rich Washington, D.C., market who received a scholarship offer from Syracuse basketball this spring, was sensational in his sophomore high-school term and followed that up with a ton of strong performances during the most recent AAU season.

All of the primary recruiting services, of late, have refreshed their national rankings for the rising-junior cycle. More updates will come in the future. But at present, the 6-foot-7 Ward is only rated in the top 50 by one recruiting Web site, and another recruiting service has him currently outside the top 100.

I get that these sorts of rankings are somewhat subjective, and they do ebb and flow throughout the course of high-school and AAU seasons. I also acknowledge that I’m not a recruiting analyst or a scout.

However, based on how this talented wing has played in recent months, to me, it’s an absolute joke that he’s not a consensus four-star, top-50 overall player in the 2025 class, if not higher than that. Naturally, that could end up happening. For now, though, Ward is supremely under-ranked.

Syracuse basketball offered a scholarship to 2025 four-star prospect Cam Ward in late April.

Ward is a highly athletic player who scores and rebounds with prowess. As a sophomore for Largo High School in Upper Marlboro, Md., during the 2022-23 stanza, he averaged 25.4 points, 12.0 rebounds and 2.5 steals per contest, according to media reports.

For those efforts, Ward received inclusion on The Washington Post’s 2022-23 All-Met first team, and MaxPreps gave him an honorable-mention nod for its 2022-23 sophomore All-America squads.

In grassroots basketball this spring and summer, Ward has earned a lot of praise from analysts and scouts for his performances as a member of the 16U squad of the Oxon Hill, Md.-based Team Durant in Nike’s EYBL league.

As I noted in another recent article, during the EYBL regular season that ran from late April to late May, Ward averaged 19.5 points and 8.1 rebounds per game for Team Durant, placing him in the top 10 overall in both categories within the 16U division.

With that as a backdrop, I’d love to get a better sense of why Rivals.com has Ward at No. 103 nationally in his class. I mean no disrespect to the good folks at Rivals.com, but that’s absurd.

Presently, ESPN is the most bullish on Ward, placing him at No. 40 overall, No. 11 at small forward and No. 2 in Maryland. Over at 247Sports, he’s No. 63 nationwide. On3 has him at No. 72 around the country in this cycle.

The industry-generated 247Sports Composite, at the time of this writing, rated Ward at No. 64 overall, No. 13 at power forward and No. 2 in Maryland. The industry-generated On3 Industry Ranking, meanwhile, situated him at No. 59 nationally, No. 11 at small forward and No. 2 in Maryland when I penned this piece.

The contact period for the 2025 class opened up on June 15, allowing college coaches to start initiating direct communication with prospects in this cycle. Multiple media reports stated that in mid-June, Ward did hear from numerous schools, including the Orange.

Besides Syracuse basketball, his offer sheet includes teams such as Georgia Tech, Penn State, Kansas State, Texas A&M, Old Dominion, Texas, Iowa, Providence, Tennessee, VCU, Georgetown, Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, George Mason, George Washington and Bryant, among others.