New Syracuse basketball 4-star recruit to battle defending national champs

Per a top high-school hoops analyst, new Syracuse basketball recruiting target Imahri Wooten and his teammates are expected to face the defending national champions at a showcase event right before the Thanksgiving holiday.

According to high-school basketball expert Samad Hines, the powerhouse AZ Compass Prep School in Chandler, Ariz., is planning to square off against the defending national champs, the juggernaut Link Academy from Branson, Mo., on November 21 at The 5 For The Fight National Hoopfest in Salt Lake City.

The 6-foot-5 Wooten, a 2026 four-star guard, is a sophomore at AZ Compass Prep, which is a member of the loaded 10-team National Interscholastic Basketball Conference (“NIBC”). This past weekend, he took an unofficial visit to the Hill and picked up a scholarship offer from the Orange coaching staff.

Both AZ Compass Prep and Link are deemed as preseason top-10 national squads, if not higher than that, by high-school hoops analysts ahead of the 2023-24 campaign.

New Syracuse basketball target Imahri Wooten will face the No. 1 team from a stanza ago.

Per MaxPreps, in the 2022-23 season, Link went 27-1 overall. The Lions were the No. 4 seed in the 2023 GEICO Nationals and captured this season-ending event, with Link getting crowned as the national champion of the 2022-23 term.

AZ Compass Prep, meanwhile, sported a 24-7 record in 2022-23. The Dragons, last year, finished in a tie for third place within the NIBC regular-season standings. They were the No. 7 seed in this spring’s GEICO Nationals and advanced to the title game, where AZ Compass Prep fell to Link.

In one set of final 2022-23 national rankings from MaxPreps, Link was No. 1, and AZ Compass Prep checked in at No. 3.

So on November 21 of this year, Wooten and his AZ Compass Prep teammates will get another shot at Link in a rematch of the 2023 GEICO Nationals championship contest.

In late August, Hines published his latest preseason top 25 ahead of the 2023-24 stanza getting underway. Hines had Link at No. 2 nationwide, while he placed AZ Compass Prep at No. 9 overall.

Wooten, who hails from Troy, N.Y., is in his first year at AZ Compass Prep. In 2022-23, he was a freshman standout at the Redemption Christian Academy in Troy, as Wooten was named to the Power 5 Conference AAA All-League first team.

In August, word came out that Wooten had transferred to AZ Compass Prep for his sophomore season. The Dragons will play a stacked 2023-24 schedule, both at showcase events like The 5 For The Fight National Hoopfest as well as during NIBC play.

Wooten, in the 2026 cycle, is rated four stars, No. 38 overall, No. 14 at small forward and No. 3 in Arizona, according to 247Sports.

Beyond Syracuse basketball, his early offer sheet includes Albany, Arizona State, Auburn, Georgia Tech, IUPUI, Mississippi State, Missouri, NJIT, St. Bonaventure and Wichita State.