Syracuse Basketball: Duke, Kentucky interest in 5-star recruit Jalil Bethea

Five-star guard Jalil Bethea from the Philadelphia area, a consensus top-20 national prospect in the 2024 class who has Syracuse basketball in his top five, is receiving interest from blue-blood programs Duke and Kentucky.

That’s according to a tweet from college basketball insider Adam Zagoria.

The 6-foot-4 Bethea, one of the fastest-rising players across the country regardless of class designation, has a top five of the Orange, Alabama, Kansas, Miami and Villanova.

He will reportedly take official visits to all five of his finalists over the next month or two, including a second official visit to the Hill this September.

Syracuse basketball five-star target Jalil Bethea is garnering blue-blood interest.

Jalil Bethea picked up a scholarship offer from the ‘Cuse coaching staff in September of 2022 and took an official visit to the Orange the following month, when Jim Boeheim was still the team’s head coach.

Bethea’s second official visit to Syracuse basketball will enable him to watch practices conducted by first-year head coach Adrian Autry and his staff.

I briefly caught up with a national recruiting analyst in recent days, and he confirmed that he, too, is hearing that Duke and Kentucky are showing interest in Bethea.

This recruiting expert added that it remains to be seen how interest from the Blue Devils and the Wildcats could impact Bethea’s recruiting process, or the Orange’s chances to prevail for him.

Of his five finalists, ‘Cuse coaches have been prioritizing Jalil Bethea pretty much as long as any of them, save for Miami and hometown Villanova.

I don’t have inside intel on Bethea, but I will say this. Any time that Duke and Kentucky are sniffing around, it’s something to monitor.

That being said, Bethea has said in many interviews that which coaching staffs are showing him the most love is important to him, and Syracuse basketball has definitely been doing that for nearly a year now, if not longer.

He was an All-American as a junior at Archbishop Wood Catholic High School in Warminster, Pa., and Jalil Bethea should contend for All-America honors once again as a senior in the upcoming 2023-24 campaign.

This spring and summer, Bethea was a huge stock-riser due to his stellar play in grassroots basketball for the Philadelphia-based Team Final in Nike’s EYBL league.

Team Final claimed the EYBL regular-season title in the 17U division and also advanced to the quarterfinals of the prestigious Peach Jam tournament, which was held last month.

On the AAU circuit in recent months, Bethea was one of the leading scorers and also one of the most efficient offensive players in the EYBL 17U division.